the alabaster jar
I rest and ponder work and giftings and motivation. Work is easy to figure out–it’s what I do. Giftings can be obvious–it’s where our passions lie. But motivation–that’s the tricky one. It’s so easy to think I have the right motivation, but then I look into my heart and see that people-pleasing monster gleefully laughing that he fooled me again. Ugh. I desire my motivation to be for Jesus’ glory and yet, there’s this thing inside me that really wants other people to be happy with my offerings, which ultimately is wanting glory for myself. Double ugh.
Mark 14:1-5 tells of a woman who poured the contents of her alabaster jar on Jesus’ feet and the guests treated her harshly for this decision.
Why? It was a gift, an offering poured out for Jesus. It was also hers to do as she pleased. Shouldn’t she have been admired by the guests? But no.
The guests treated her harshly. They thought she wasted her gift. They thought her gift would have been better served to have been sold for much money and the money given to the poor. They thought their idea of how to use her offering was better and would serve more people. Hence, having greater impact. The guests wanted her offering done in Jesus’ name. She wanted to give her gift for Jesus alone.
It is clear that every gift we bring, every offering we offer can have two motivations. Is it done in Jesus’ name or is it done for him? The guests wanted her gift to be sold and money given to the poor–an offering given in Jesus’ name. The woman wanted to pour out her offering solely for Jesus’ benefit. She gave her offering for him.
There is a subtle, yet distinct difference. Is what I do done in Jesus’ name or is it done for him to be used for him and by him how he sees fit. I need to bring my offerings to him, pour them out on him and for him and let him decide how they best serve his purposes. I need to relinquish control and simply offer.
The woman in our story brought her gift, broke it open and poured it out on Jesus. She was criticized. She was murmered about. But Jesus. Jesus rebuked her critics and declared her gift an anointing of him. For his burial.
The point is, we may think we know what our gifts will be best served by, but do we? Shouldn’t we simply offer our gifts up to Jesus for him to be used as he sees fit? Isn’t this just one other way we can welcome grace into our lives? Giving to him and letting go in the giving?
Each day I am challenged to give my time and moments for him to be used by him. If I want the people-pleasing monster within me to stay silent, then I must give my time, days, words, moments to Jesus for him to decide how they will best serve his purpose. He knows.
He knows. And in this I trust.
a walk in the woods
I grew up traveling back and forth between the plains of Montana and the woods of Washington and along the way I developed a love for wide open spaces where I could see the vastness of creation and have a visual of how majestic is my God.
I also love the woods and the trees and it was there that I learned how my God loves small, tiny details. That he finds and created beauty in the knotty pine of bark on a tree, the twirl of a leaf in the breeze, the hearts delicately dangling from the stem of a bleeding-heart plant. I grew up knowing both the bigness of God and also how he delights in tiny, seemingly insignificant things.
One morning in my quiet time, I imagined the Lord and I on a walk in the cool woods and we sat down together on a log and I breathed in the scent of Him and breathed out praise to Him. I imagined leaning against him simply enjoying his company and feeling the security of him enjoying me.
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As we sat and soaked in the beauty around us, the Lord nudged me and said, “Look at that rock at your feet, let’s pick it up.’
‘Oh, no, let’s just look at it,’ I replied, ‘look at the beautiful designs on it, do you think it’s got some gypsum in it? I love how it sparkles in the morning light.’
‘Daughter, let us pick it up and look underneath.’
‘Oh, Lord, not that!’ I nervously exclaimed. ‘There are bugs and creepy crawly things under there and I just don’t like creepy crawly things. That’s their home, we had best not disturb them, plus, what if they get out and crawl all over this log we’re sitting on. That would really creep me out. I will feel itchy all day!’
‘Daughter, please pick it up. I want to show you something.’
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And he did.
He showed me that just as the Israelites would set up monuments to remember some event in their history so I too create monuments in my heart. Monuments of moments in my life. Amazing monuments such as my wedding day or the births of my children or the reconciliation with a parent. Great moments like having one more school year wrapped up. Or having an accelerated accomplishment kind of day.
But some monuments may not be amazing or great, and they seem rather insignificant. Just little stones along my path. Or maybe a hefty size rock. Remembrances of moments of pain and anger. Or bitterness and resentment and how God, in his glorious promise, turned it into something good and instead of being something I stumble over, they have become monuments of moments where I allowed the Lord to turn something ugly into something beautiful.
However, as with all hurts and pains and rejections that have touched the recesses of my soul, sometimes the Lord wants to turn that rock over and examine the underneath, and often, but not always, he finds a little piece of bitterness or unforgiveness that he wants to remove.
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I sigh and look up into his lovely eyes and breathe, ‘Couldn’t we have left it alone?’
He turns those love-filled eyes on me and whispers, ‘I love you too much to allow what is unseemly to multiply. I want you to grow in the ways of my love and sometimes that involves letting me see what’s underneath the moments in your life.’
‘But, Lord, it hurts to do that. Couldn’t I just look from a distance, I don’t want to pick up the rock. It still hurts to remember’, I whimper.
‘Oh my sweet girl, that’s precisely why we need to check underneath the rock. The greater the level of your pain, the greater your risk for unforgiveness is.’
And the Lord, gently guided my hand to pick up the rock and as I turned it belly side up to him, he gently brushed the grubs and creepy crawly things away and held my chin in his hand and whispered, ‘Thank-you for trusting me to do what is for your best.’
He kissed me and I glowed as bright as the morning sun.
come and rest in grace
refuge.
a place to hide.
a place of security.
Is a refuge only for times of trouble? or do we need to change our mindset of the purpose of a refuge?
God is our refuge. I have found that he wants me to make him my refuge when times are bad and when times are good. He is my safe place. He is my place to recharge. He is my resting place. He is my hiding place. He is the place I can go to when my heart is bruised and my soul is weary and my mind is overloaded.
He is also the place I go to when life is good and I want to rejoice in the birdsong of early morning or celebrate the exquisite smell of lilacs. The Lord doesn’t merely long to be the place we run when life has beaten us down, but He wants to be the one we reach for when life has presented us with sunshine.
I came across Psalm 31 the other day and I found so many references to the Lord being our refuge. Did you know that when we make Him our refuge we will not be put to shame? Shame is such an insidious problem. Shame forces us into hiding, but the wrong kind of hiding. We withdraw from the Lord and from people who long to walk through life with us. We find freedom when we make the Lord our refuge. He is strong and mighty to save and is able to rescue us from ourselves. He also wants to pour out His goodness on us–how I long for His goodness– His goodness is poured out when I take refuge in Him!
But there have been times in my life where I think I am making Him my refuge, but I still feel as though I need to tackle all my life problems myself. I believe I found the litmus test of whether I am truly making the Lord my refuge and that is found in Psalm 62:8 ‘Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge’. Two things light up for me in this scripture:
1. Am I trusting Him?
2. Am I pouring out my heart to Him?
Am I letting the Lord into the secret places of my heart, the secret thoughts? Am I speaking all that is within my heart or filtering what I say to Him?
I get scared.
of people.
a lot.
I allow people to wield too much power over me. Trusting God and pouring out my heart to Him are two things that I can do to break that unhealthy power I give to people because when I trust God and pour out my heart to Him, His opinion becomes more important and more powerful in my life.
And you? What are your struggles? When do you most often want to hide and where do you go? Have you thought of the Lord as your refuge and have you pondered all that He wants to do for you there?
Welcome His grace into your life by running to Him when you long for a refuge.
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