God is God and I am His servant. That means He can do with me and my life whatever He wants. And He doesn’t have to get my approval to do it.

A few months ago my kids heard the story of what Church tradition states happened to the apostle Thomas.

Now, like I said this is just church tradition we don’t know for sure, but here’s how the story goes. Remember, Thomas was one of the twelve disciples who walked with Jesus. Well, years later after Jesus had returned to His Father’s side, Thomas was called by God to go to India but he didn’t want to leave Jerusalem or Israel, especially not to go someplace really foreign. So Thomas said no.

But God does not always take “no” for an answer.

One day Thomas was in the marketplace and a man just happened to be there who worked for the king of India and he was looking for a carpenter to build a palace for his king. All of a sudden Jesus appeared to this man from India and said “I have a servant who is a carpenter. I’ll sell him to you and he’ll go back and work for your king.”

Jesus then pointed at Thomas across the marketplace and said “That’s my servant.”

The man from India paid Jesus, then walked over to Thomas and while pointing at Jesus asked Thomas “Is that your Master?”

Thomas had no choice but to respond, “Yes that is my Master.”

The man from India said “Great, I just bought you. Now you belong to my king and you need to come with me and build him a palace.”

So Thomas went to India.

Now, my children did not think this was quite fair of Jesus to sell Thomas and force him to go like that. And we had quite the conversation about it.

But probably my children aren’t the only ones who struggle with this story. It can be difficult for us in this freedom-loving, priding-ourselves-on-our-independence-culture in which we live to appreciate what happens when we enter into Covenant with God.

We become His. Bondservants, Paul would put it. Slaves could be another option. We become God’s in every sense of the word. We no longer belong to ourselves. Everything we are and do belongs to our Master.

It’s fine to say this, but it’s another when God begins to act like we are His.

I can think of several instances right now of people I know and love, and I don’t particularly care for what God is allowing in their lives.
It doesn’t seem fair.
It doesn’t feel good.
It doesn’t appear to have any positive outcome.

Like Thomas, I feel like God has sold these people into a very difficult situation and I don’t like it.

But here’s what I told my kids during our discussion.

If Jesus wanted to come back to earth to sell Thomas to make sure he made it to India, Jesus had every right to do it. And it’s ok if we don’t like that. Because it’s not about us and what we like or don’t like. It’s all about God and what He is doing to bring glory to His Name and further His kingdom on this planet. 

It’s not about us. It’s not about what we like. It’s not about what feels good or even seems fair. We are the servants. He is the Master. We are here for His pleasure and His plan.

Believer, may we learn this truth and may we learn it well, it’s all about God. May all that we are, all that we do, all that we sing, and all that we say be to the glory and praise of God who has done so much for us. He brought us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His Beloved Son. He is so good. But He is also God. And it’s time we learned we are servants of the King.