Our human nature is bent towards compensation. We screw up and try to fix things by doing more or giving more. Our kids are mad at us for a decision made and we try to ‘make’ it up to them through various ways–whether it’s a gift or privilege or event. We hurt our spouse and try to compensate by buying them something or taking them somewhere. We feel inadequate in our jobs or volunteer position so we work harder or volunteer more and longer. It becomes a continuous cycle of do more, try harder then repeat.
The Israelites were great at offering sacrifices. There were numerous sacrifices and the priests were busy day and night presenting the sacrifices of the people to the Lord. And somehow, we, along with the Israelites think that is all that is required of us.
But what if it isn’t?
What if we have it all wrong?
What if it isn’t in our serving, our giving, our support of missions, or our doing the ‘right’ things? These are so important, but can easily distract us and deceive us into believing we are giving God exactly what he desires.
What if we are missing the mark in understanding what God really wants?
Look at what the Lord says in Psalm 50:7-11:
“Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.”
Do you hear the Lord’s cry? He is not rejecting all that we give and do for him in his name, but he is calling us to something greater.
Psalm 50:14-15
“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
The three things He longs to receive from us are:
…thanksgiving
…fulfill your vows
…call upon Him
Thanksgiving. It seems too easy. It seems too hard. In the good times, thanksgiving doesn’t seem like it is ‘enough’, and in hard times, thanksgiving is too ‘hard’, so we think we need to ‘supplement’ thanksgiving by doing more and giving more and being more. To offer thanksgiving with a heart fully engaged does require sacrifice on our part. In the good times, we need to be satisfied that our thanks is enough and sacrifice our desire to do more on the altar of His acceptance. In the bad times, it is a sacrifice to give him our thanks because it hurts and giving and doing more doesn’t hurt as bad as standing before the Lord and telling him, ‘This is awful, I hate what is happening, but you are good and I thank you for your kindness and mercy and grace and greatness,’ and really mean it.
Vows. It seems as though vows don’t hold the same weight as they once did, it seems as though commitment is a choice based on the whim of the moment or what is best for ‘me’. But the Lord says to fulfill our vows to him. When we accept Christ’s redeeming and resurrecting work in our life, we enter into a covenantal relationship with the Lord to believe him, to be faithful to him, to trust him, to be made like him and to stand firm. That is fulfilling our vows to him.
Trouble. It follows us. We cannot escape it. What we do when trouble smacks us along side the head will show us where we place our trust. Do we ‘pull up our boot straps’ and dig in? Do we face it with a ‘stiff upper lip’? Do we try and deal with it in our own strength, which is so very feeble and inadequate? Do we call upon the Lord only when we have exhausted all other options? Look what the Psalmist tells us: ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you’. The moment we run into trouble or trouble comes running into us our very first response should be to call upon the Lord. Do you? Do I?
Three things the Lord counts as sacrifices offered to him:
thanksgiving,
commitment to him,
and dependence on him.
In this we will honor him and isn’t that what we want to do? Isn’t that what this life surrendered wholly to him is all about?
grace is one of those topics that the more I discover about it the more the mystery grows. I peel a layer and unearth a beautiful facet about grace, then another layer is revealed and I begin to peel that one away as well. Sometimes during the process I feel I lose all that I know and understand about grace, but as the next layer is revealed what understanding I lost crystalizes as it comes into focus.
Brokenness. It’s a facet of grace that I wouldn’t consider. Unless I experienced it.
I thought I knew brokenness. I am a child of a broken home. I am the descendent of broken relationships. And with the brokenness comes all different kinds effects: insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of success, emotional issues, physical issues, self-image issues, God-view issues, and a host of other problems. If you had asked me, I would have described myself as a broken plate that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God put me back together again–with my cracks showing and empty places where the missing pieces were too small to replace. That’s the kind of brokenness I understood. And it’s a kind of brokenness we all can relate to.
We all have cracks. We all have missing pieces. We all have the ‘what-ifs?’ We all have spots in our lives with missing pieces that we ask ourselves ‘would that piece be missing if…’. I say let’s let God piece us back together, but let’s let Him place the pieces as He sees fit.
Brokenness. It was my companion. It was integral to my integrity. It still is. But just as with my understanding of grace, I needed to have a new understanding of brokenness.
The brokenness I experienced was a direct result of my life’s circumstances. Many were not even my own choices. I didn’t choose to come from a broken home. I didn’t choose to have a generational line of broken relationships. Those weren’t my choices. The effects of those choices–were they mine or were they an unavoidable consequence?
Both.
A toddler or young child doesn’t have the emotional maturity to deal with the heart sorrows that affect him or her. But, they grow up with a residual feeling that they can’t define, yet it defines their life, their choices, and their worldview. In my case, insecurity and fear of rejection were the core results of my broken life.
It was by God’s grace, by His tender, pursuing grace that He brought me to a place where I was willing to be broken by Him. Insecurity and fear of rejection were my armor. They don’t make good armor, but I had fooled myself into thinking that they did. I hid my true self, the self God wanted me to be behind that faulty armor. I tried my hardest to make sure that people liked me and I would mold myself into being whatever someone wanted because then they wouldn’t reject me.
People had become my god.
But my heart wanted God to be my God.
Brokenness. Broken by life’s circumstances or broken by God? Both are facets of brokenness and God’s grace is at work in both. God will love us and pour His grace on us throughout our circumstances. He will walk us through the fire and the storms and the fields of beauty.
However, He will also break, if we’re willing, the things in our lives that prevent Him from being God in our hearts, our lives, and our homes. My battle with insecurity and fear of rejection was broken by a gracious God. It was a painful journey, but He poured His grace into the broken pieces and has begun the process of putting me together in His plan and in His time. And He longs to do the same for everyone. The question remains….will you?
This is grace. My mind, which is wrapped around performance and what people think of me, finds the idea of receiving something that I don’t deserve profound. You mean I don’t have to do anything? I don’t have to measure up for a trial period before I get to keep it? You mean all the good things I have done, all the ‘points’ I received for being kind and sweet and patient don’t matter and the only one who is keeping track of ‘points’ is me? I can simply receive?
Think about it. Does that make you uncomfortable?
I have a friend who embodies generosity. Generosity with no strings attached, it simply flows from her heart and she pours that generosity out on me. I will think I don’t deserve it, but what a disservice I give to her and her generosity. If I attempt to justify her generosity to me, I am, in effect, minimizing her gift. Isn’t that what we do with God’s grace?
I minimize the gift of grace when I declare whether I can receive it or not. It is the giver who determines who receives the gift. Wouldn’t it be silly if I received an amazing Christmas gift and told the giver I couldn’t keep it? Would I even consider that? Yet, how often do I do that with the grace the Lord longs to pour out on me. Who am I to say to the Lord that he can’t give me his grace? Why would I ever consider that? Yet, that is exactly what I am saying when I strive for goodness in my own strength.
I am a midwestern girl and I grew up with the mindset that ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way’. This mindset, coupled with the Lord, has seen me through difficult and crushing situations, but when I try and do this life on my own, I quickly move from dependence to independence. I move from reliance on a God greater than I, to self-reliance. And the last I checked, I mess things up quite a bit.
It’s an interesting and mind-bedding concept. Acceptance of a gift I didn’t earn. Acceptance of a gift that I can in no way shape or form ever consider reciprocating. But that’s the thing. Reciprocating in God’s economy doesn’t mean giving back to him exactly what he gave to me. Reciprocating in God’s economy means surrender and living this life for Him.
And if I want to continue to welcome grace into my life, then I need to be ‘uncomfortable’ and freely receive the grace my Lord pours out in me.
