Growth

No Small Offering


Easter is a time of celebration. While it has disintegrated into a celebration of cute bunnies and funny tasty candy (Peeps, anyone?) its still a cause for hoopla. Of course, Christians know that the reason we celebrate has nothing to do with the trappings of the day and has everything to do with why the day was originally established. It was set aside as a day to remember the resurrection of our Lord and Savior – a day when death no longer had victory.

Preceding Easter, many people ascribe to a tradition known as Lent. During these forty days they give up something of importance to them. It was popular this year to give up Facebook – an acknowledgment perhaps that the time we devote to “friending” people we knew in grade school might be better spent doing something else. The idea is that we sacrifice because Christ sacrificed, and in doing so we honor His death.

While the intention of Lent is a good one, I wonder if we trivialize what Christ did by thinking that our abstention from chocolate for a month, really equates to what He did on the cross. After all, He gave up the one thing that we are all longing for – daily communion with our Creator. He had peace that surpassed understanding, love abounding, and joy inexpressible, and He left that for what we experience here on Earth – an absence of peace, fleeting love, and mitigated joy. Our willingness to give up worldly pleasures doesn’t compare to His relinquishing of heaven’s gifts. And while we a never be able to match Christ’s sacrifice, we can give Him all we have – our life, our love, and the talents He has so graciously bestowed upon us. It’s still not a fair trade for what He had to endure, but it’s the best we have to give.

We want to compartmentalize our gifts to God. We want to say, “I’ll give up TV, but I’m keeping my covetousness.” We’ll give up treats but hoard our independence. May we determine here and now that just as He gave up everything, so will we. With the same intention as His – that our Father may receive glory.

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Hope

Not Yet Known


Throughout my life I’ve become notorious in my family for losing cameras. I’m not sure what it was, but for some reason, I never could seem to keep a camera in my possession for very long. It was an expensive, as well as annoying, predilection. Yet despite the angst it caused me, there was little doubt that at some time in the future a new camera would once again become an unintentional donation to another person. It seems as if the lesson was just never learned.

Sometimes our relationship with God can feel like that. We walk with Him, we talk with Him, and we think we have this whole Christianity thing down. Then something happens; usually something unforeseen and something that prompts conviction, and we realize that our well-maintained religious facade is masking our heat’s need of some serious restoration from our Lord and Savior.

The good thing is that we’re not the only ones who have experienced this. In B.B. Warfield’s book “Faith & Life” (which I am reading based on a recommendation from a trusted friend) he opens with a recount of the life of Elijah. Elijah was a man who had a specific task grated to him by God, and who’s character was uniquely suited for accomplishment of this task. A man of strong moral conviction, Elijah was to warn the Israelites about the consequences of their sin. Despite the fact that here was a man who was literally on a mission from God, on numerous times he had to face the fact that he did not fully understand Him. As Warfield demonstrates, among Elijah’s hard-learned lessons was trusting in God’s provisions, being charitable towards others’ sufferings and more. Elijah was a man who heard directly and audibly from God and yet for him, there was always a part that remained unknown.

So it is with us. Despite our deepening understanding of God, there will always be new lessons for us to learn. While daunting, this is also a beautiful reminder that He is altogether different from us. And its His difference that allow us to trust Him and rely on His unwavering faithfulness. Unlike my propensity for losing cameras, God never loses us. So even when we feel like we know nothing at all, we can know that. And when we don’t understand what’s happening in our life, we can take comfort in the fact that for us, as was with Elijah, He is fully, not yet known.

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