Elephants and Ice Cream: Get Your Spoon Out!

Could you eat two scoops of Ice cream?

This whole “Eating an elephant one bite at a time” thing can be problematic―especially when it comes to evangelism.  It lulls us into complacency because is it an example of something that none of us would ever do in reality.  I’m never going to eat an elephant―not one limb―not one shovelful―and not one bite at a time.  If evangelism is about starting with small steps likened to a bite of an elephant―then no thank you. 

       Eat an elephant? Yuck! Why even try.

A cow?

Maybe a cow…right?  Would it be better to ask,                   “How do you eat a cow?”

With the answer being, “You eat a cow one hamburger or tri-tip at a time.” 

Maybe. Realistically, however it would take the average person 10 years to eat the weight of a butchered cow… not including hooves and eye-balls and other body parts. Maybe it is easier to image eating a cow over the idea of eating an elephant, but in all reality “forget-about-it” because it’s still too big of a project for the mere mortal to engage over the course of a year.   

If the cow example doesn’t work, than let’s try this one? 

How do you eat a mountain of ice cream? 

I love ice cream and even though I’d like to give it a shot, I know it would be impossible for me to eat a mountain of ice cream as big as Mount Everest.

You just couldn’t do it!

But what if several million people all picked up a spoon and began eating.

                        Together, we could indeed eat an entire mountain of ice cream.

When we think of evangelism it would be easy to be overcome by the insurmountable odds of getting the message of the gospel out to the billions who are perishing―that is like eating an elephant, a cow or a mountain of ice cream. But when we understand that we are called into this together and that each one us only has to eat two scoops of ice cream it suddenly makes the whole idea seem very simple (and if not enjoyable). 

Even with the faith of a mustard seed WE can move mountains. Don’t even begin to think it is something you must do by yourself. Simply pick up your spoon and influence the couple people that God has placed around you. Trust God and have faith to be used by Him in the course of everyday living in making Him known and extending His glory. Become intentional with relationships. Pray for transformational encounters and actively encarnationally engage the world next door.   

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. 

                                                                                                                                       Eph 3:20-21

You are perfectly positioned and supernaturally equipped by God. Believe that He can use you to win one person in one year for the sake of His Holy Name.        Pick up your spoon!