“Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.”

We know the story and the imagery of Sisyphus, continuously through his mythological existence pushing the stone up the steep hill.  It looks (and feels like this).

This may be the way we are feeling as we go into this weekend, knowing that we have much to do this year and already wondering how we will get it all done. Or perhaps we are already wondering if we have what it takes, or are we the right person needed at this time? We might be wondering if we aren’t just a Sisyphus?  However, there is another attitude that can be adopted and that is the attention to those things that are going well, knowing what we are good at, seeing where we are needed and focusing on them and getting momentum going around these things. It’s what I call, “Rolling Boulders Downhill”.  Imagine if the word went out to Sisyphus that his new calling was to let the boulder go, get out of the way and start chasing it as it rolls. It creates a whole new feeling doesn’t it?  Now, maybe and likely because it is what we do, over time we’d create a myth about the boulder that can never be caught, but let’s go with it for now and just imagine that a boulder with momentum could take us just about anywhere and that could be really fun and exciting.

Whether uphill or downhill, the energy expended and released to move the boulder is energy that we choose to focus.  What we learn in 1 Peter is that when we put our shoulders to the gifts that we have been given for God’s purposes that we will be bringing glory and power to Him!  So, let’s figure out what it is we have to bring and what we can do and then put those to good work to create the positive boulder rolling within our lives and others.

Reference: 1 Peter 4:11 (New Living Translation)