One of my favorite management buzzwords is the term "value added". It brings to the forefront two critical questions that should be asked about any business activity: What value is created by this activity? What value is lost if this activity ceases? Good business practice examines activities and determines if they provide "value added", so that activities that do not add value can be pruned from the organization.

The concept deviates into dangerous territory when we apply "value added" to individuals. We might think that one person adds value to the firm while another does not. However, there are plenty of people in most businesses that believe themselves to be "value added" people, maybe even based on past successes, but who have not added any value in some time. They might even develop an entitlement mind-set that believes the business owes them, and they become a "value drain." Likewise, there are many famous cases of people let go from organizations as providing no value, just to provide great value to new organizations in different circumstances. It isn't who these people are, but what they do in present circumstances, that is the core of the concept "value added."

That's a shame. We all want to be wanted, especially in something that creates as much anxiety in most of us as knowing the paychecks will continue to arrive. We would love to be guaranteed of our importance to the firm, of how necessary it is for the company's existence and health to keep us employed, for we know how necessary that salary is to our existence and health.

Most Christians don't have the same level of anxiety about their faith that they do about their jobs. We feel more secure about God's love, and we should, for God will not "right-size" us in the same manner that our boss might during a downturn. God's love doesn't answer to stockholders, and there are no constraints in God's supply of blessings.

But that assurance of God's continued grace can also lead us into dangerous thought patterns. Without an aggravated boss to frown at our work and demand higher performance, it is far too easy for us to become complacent in what we are doing. Worse than that, we might believe that God's plan depends on us, which of course puts us in a dandy negotiating position with the Almighty! God has what we want, and we have what God wants, so surely we all can come to mutually beneficial arrangements, can't we?

It didn't work with the Pharisees, and it won't work for us. In the first passage above, Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees' complaints about the cheering crowds by commenting that God could make the rocks shout in jubilation if the people were silenced. In the second passage, John the Baptist tears apart the Pharisees' argument that since they had the right blood line to be blessed of God, God had no choice in the matter. JohnÕs response was that God can work through rocks if the chosen people refuse to serve God obediently.

How does it make you feel to think that God could replace you with a boulder? I am a bit taken aback to think that God could make the pebbles dance across my computer keyboard to write this meditation and post it to the web site. Then again, of course God could do that, and I dare say the pebbles would be more obedient to delivering the message that God intends than I often am. Whatever thought God wanted you to receive through this writing, God could deliver with a giant hand writing on your wall, or in blazing letters across the sky, or by booming voices filling your head. God doesn't need me for that.

Once I put my ego aside, I find great peace in that thought. First, God doesn't have to use me, or any other person, but God chooses to use me. I am trusted with a tiny piece of God's work, no matter how difficult it is for God to provoke me to do it, which God will take and use in ways and opportunities I can't possibly foresee.

But what if you needed to read that phrase I cut out of the first paragraph because I thought it didn't fit? Is it that easy for me to deny you the assurance you need, or prevent you from receiving the calling God sends to you because I have a different sense of sentence flow? No, and that's my second assurance. God will find a way to do what needs to be done, even when my best efforts are too sinful and feeble to succeed.

It is never our work, and it is always God's work. It is never our strength, talent, skill, or creativity that makes the difference, but God's. It is never dependent on our weakness, dullness, or lack of ability, because God supplies the power. All our stubbornness, close-mindedness, and sinfulness cannot stop God's work, because God can always find another way, but we are the ones who lose out when we miss opportunities to be used by God.