Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] Hey everybody. Pastor Chuck Allen here, and I trust you've enjoyed this week's editions of the weekday podcast. These episodes have really moved me in a powerful way to the degree that I wrote a book about it while I was on vacation. The concept of the things that heaven pays attention to, the things that God honors in our life, it is never those things that we think are big, flashy or, or just like big time or successful. It is so antithetical to how the world sees our lives.
[00:00:42] God just sees them so differently. And today I want to talk about the prayer because heaven is paying attention.
[00:00:50] There's this woman who taught my Sunday school class when I was a boy.
[00:00:56] We were members at the, at the Green Meadow Baptist Church in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
[00:01:03] My dad had moved us from Daytona Beach, Florida up to Rhode Island. He was in business, he was planting churches in New England. And we were part of this little church. And that was interesting because originally, before dad built another church next door to it, more modern, we, we lived in this old. Well, I mean, we didn't live, we, we worshiped in this old house that some faithful people and my dad turned into a church. And I, I can recall my Sunday school room was upstairs and it had that smell, you know, of like the old church. And there was this lady named Eleanor Dollar who was my Sunday school teacher. She brought cookies every single week. I mean, the kind that you make at melt in your mouth. And she wore reading glasses on a chain with like little pearl beads on them. I'll never forget them. Every single week. I. You know, when you're a kid, you have no idea how badly you're going to need those someday.
[00:02:02] And she showed up again and again and again. Somehow, some way I remember her being my Sunday school teacher three straight years. She must have asked could she just stay with this group of rowdy kids.
[00:02:14] Well, she was, she was never anything flashy. I mean, she was just a sweet old lady, probably in that time in her 60s. And she, she, she wasn't platform worthy. She wasn't a great speaker, she wasn't a great teacher. She didn't do anything there back in the day. Of course, there's no video or anything. I mean, flannel graph was like super high tech.
[00:02:34] All she was was faithful.
[00:02:37] One day, Ms. Dollar, she pulls me aside. It seems to me like God does some of the coolest things in our life when somebody pulls us aside or when he pulls us aside.
[00:02:48] She pulls me aside and she says, chucky, I pray for you by name every single Morning. Did you know that?
[00:02:56] And of course, I didn't have a clue. So my answer to her was, no, I didn't know. And at the moment, it probably sounded so flippant, I didn't know what to say.
[00:03:06] It just never occurred to me that someone was carrying me like that before God.
[00:03:13] But something in me, even as a little boy, shifted, and shortly thereafter, I came to know Jesus as my savior.
[00:03:20] It just. It just never crossed my mind that people do that.
[00:03:24] You know, I was a kid.
[00:03:27] But it did shift something in me. I felt seen and held. I've. Even as a kid, I knew, wait a minute. There was something different about her.
[00:03:37] And she probably had zero idea. Just like yesterday when I was talking about Coach Strickland. It's not like, I guarantee you, Mrs. Dollar went home, told her husband, wow, I changed Chuckie Allen's wife today. I mean, that's just not how it works.
[00:03:53] She had no idea.
[00:03:54] But the most powerful things we do often feel ridiculously ordinary when we're doing them.
[00:04:02] In Hebrews 11:38, it talks about people of whom the world was not worthy. People the world didn't notice, didn't celebrate people that well. We didn't record, we didn't quote on Facebook, we didn't post on Instagram, we didn't put a video of their talk on TikTok. We.
[00:04:23] Nobody saw what was happening between Mrs. Dollar and those kids. And for the record, she probably done that with thousands of kids. I just happen to be one of them.
[00:04:35] But heaven noticed, and heaven sees differently. And occasionally I think, like I did on vacation a few weeks ago, occasionally, I think I wonder where my life would have been had there not been a Mrs. Dollar or a Coach Strickland in my life.
[00:04:50] Heaven sees things so differently. Heaven keeps a different kind of ledger, especially every prayer, every act of kindness, and every moment of faithfulness. I want to run through that list one more time, because maybe you didn't hear me. Every prayer, every act of kindness, and every moment of faithfulness. It all matters, even when no one else sees it.
[00:05:16] Mrs. Dollar wasn't looking for somebody to give her a, you know, a plaque that said, ooh, Sunday School Teacher of the Year.
[00:05:23] She was just doing what she knew to do, to be faithful in her service to a bunch of little boys and little girls. And my guess is I was more than a handful, which is probably why she prayed for me every day.
[00:05:35] So even though nobody sees it, especially when no one sees it, if your life might feel small to you today, if your work feels unknown, noticed to you today. If your faithfulness feels invisible today, friend, you're in good company.
[00:05:50] Because the kingdom has always been built this way, seed by seed, person by person, moment by moment, one little step of faithfulness at a time. And here's the great news. Heaven is paying attention to that.
[00:06:05] So, friend, while you may feel invisible and you may feel like you're just not a big deal, keep showing up, keep loving, keep serving, keep having the prayer and the conversation. And keep trusting. Because in the economy of God, nothing done in love is ever, ever wasted, friend. I think that's an incredibly encouraging statement for us to walk away from this week and prepare for an awesome weekend. Keep showing up, keep loving, keep trusting. Because in the economy of God, nothing done in love is ever, ever wasted. I want to thank you so much for hanging out with me this week and for joining on the weekday podcast. You can share these, and I hope you will, because there's probably somebody out there that you know in your walk that needs a word of encouragement. God bless you. Have a great weekend. Bye now.
