we're studying luke right now in the series called 'the heart of the matter'. this past week's lesson talked about the widow's gift to God - which was simply two small coins but was all she had to live on. and one of the discussion questions was about what we are doing to help people in need, and what would God say about what we are doing?
and it got me to thinking about how i am such a homebody. i like being home. home makes me happy. when i am away from home i miss it. i miss my cats, i miss the familiar surroundings, i yearn to return.
so when i give, it is usually out of the comfort of my home that i give.
it's like this: we tithe. it has been our joy to be able to give back to God what is His and we recognize that He has carried us through an immensely stressful financial period of our lives, and continues to do so. what right do we have to keep any money that is His? so we tithe. probably not enough, according to the widow's mite.
we also want to give an offering to a ministry jon is heavily involved in. that is over and above our tithe, we feel appropriately so.
and we are willing to open our home to someone who needs it - someone who cannot stay in their own home right now. we've prayed about fostering for some time now, and we feel this situation is something God's been preparing us for and that we should step up, so we've offered our home and we are simply going to wait in obedience for confirmation that it will happen.
but giving money and offering our home is still within our comfort zone.
someone might look at me and say - are you crazy? inviting a teenager that isn't family into your home? your whole home life will be turned upside down.
true. but i'm still home. this is my refuge, my place i find solace. how much of a sacrifice is it, then, if i am still home?
maybe i'm too hard on myself and giving my homelife up to a huge change will truly be a sacrifice, but i know me. and i know that a true sacrifice in the world of trace is being away from home.
could it be that God has given us this house we live in as a resource to reach out to people and share His grace and provision with others? is that the calling? or is there more God is preparing me for? is there more stepping out in faith to come and this is just a stepping stone of faith?
i guess what i'm saying is, as much as i want to say i am sacrificing for Him (giving to Him everything i have to live on, as the widow did), is it truly a sacrifice, is it truly all i have, if i am still in the comfort of 'home'?
i'd like to say it is. but something in me knows that i would much rather give all i have and get to stay at home, then to give little bits here and there and not have home. where, then, is the sacrifice?
pondering these things, and praying to be faithful in all things.
the safety of my home
beware
when you see signs that start with beware, you are likely to think there is something dangerous and harmful that you are being warned to be on high alert for.
similarly, when we hear someone say beware, we change how we hear what is next. we aren't listening to something quaint or funny. we don't expect to hear something soft and kind. no, we prepare ourselves for something that is not good for us, something that can hurt us, something that we need to keep watch for and avoid.
right?
so, imagine being in Jesus' day, and having been a student of the law you are now considered an expert. people come to you for advice because you know the law up one side and down the other. and why shouldn't you? you are an expert!
and now Jesus' has just told everyone in a crowd around you to beware of you.
man, that's harsh. that's like being in grade school and a girl tells all her little friends not to talk to you. what an outcast you will become. they all suddenly look at you differently, like you are diseased.
but it is that important not to make God's Word into a trump card to serve yourself.
duh.
but not so much, duh, because really, we do this a lot more often than we think. sure, we aren't out there like television evangelists asking for money and living in mansions and having several cars in your multi-car garage and wearing gold watches that cost more than the annual income of most of the people you are soliciting. but we still do it.
in littler ways, and in much less conspicuous ways, which makes it maybe even a little more dangerous because it's near impossible to detect. and if you don't detect it, it will take root in you and grow.
i have been so convicted reading luke 20:45-47.
45 And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, 46 "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 47 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."
because i know how i like praise. i like people to see me doing things for God. it is not why i do it, i am so very happy to say, but it is a thought not too far behind my decision to submit or obey. it doesn't take me long to realize that people are going to see the results of this decision and i delight in knowing how it makes me look.
ugh! i hate that. i hate that it is even a thought in my head, even if it is fleeting. i hate that i desire man's recognition at all. and yet, i do. (and i hate admitting it, too!)
and while i don't devour widow's property, do i put the money that God has entrusted me with to the use that He intended it? [i'm shaking my head no].
i serve me. that's really what it boils down to. i always have 'me' in the back of my mind and how it will affect 'me' and what 'i' will get out of it and even thinking how serving God will make 'me' feel.
where is the blinding and unconditional love that i must have for Him? the kind that makes me forget all about 'me' and forges straight into the thick of serving Him with absolute abandon of the cost or the affect it will have on my comfort? where is that?
and seriously, does God deserve anything less? how inappropriate to give Him something far inferior of what He is worthy and expects. His very being demands it!
money is nothing we should beware. it is the heart of the matter that we need to recognize and attend to.
for whom does our heart beat? what in your life indicates otherwise?
a spirit of yes
that's a neat catchy phrase, don't you think?.. "a spirit of yes".
i was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about how sometimes God may not want us to actually DO something, but to be WILLING to do something. like, in her case, going on a trip to poland. when she was first approached about this trip, her response was
i don't want to go, but i will if You want me to
then there's that part where God deals with your heart, challenges you, changes you,.. molds you into the person He has designed you to be. that is what happened to my friend. she developed a change of heart about the trip. it became
i want to go, but i will stay if You want me to
i will stay? yes, as it turned out, along with her heart change, the trip changed and there was a big possibility that it would not happen after all.
we talked about how, perhaps, God's design in all of this was to get her to place where she had a spirit of 'yes'.
boy howdy do i know about that! He has certainly done that in my life, over and over, and even very recently (which is not a surprise to you if you read my blogs).
that is my prayer, my heart - is to always face God and the life that He lays out before me with a spirit of yes.