Month: September 2023

My oldest daughter got married recently. It was a lovely day filled with special moments and precious memories. An added sweetness was being able to celebrate with family and friends who are family, most of whom we haven’t seen in more than a year. 

There were also a lot of people we had never met before. But that’s the thing about weddings – they turn strangers into relations. People who may have never even seen one another before are now tied together, not by their choice but by someone else’s choice. I guess it’s something like getting a sibling – your opinion on the matter doesn’t make much difference.

This got me thinking about blood relations and love relations. The family we inherit and the family we create. Some people come with love “built-in” and some get assigned to us without our consent. But maybe we’re wrong to believe the illusion that we get to choose the people we get to love. Because Jesus didn’t make any distinctions and He didn’t really give us any options – He just said, “I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you” (John 15:12).

Not a choice, a command. Not limited to the people you share DNA with, or the ones you like or the ones who are nice to you. As a matter of fact, Jesus taught that good intentions and actions were to be specifically extended to the people who are the most offensive to us, even to the point we would consider them enemies (Luke 6:35).

Because really and truly that is how He loved us. He welcomed sinners. He embraced the wasteful, the dirty, and the diseased. He didn’t turn His back on the socially awkward or the desperately needy. He begged forgiveness from the Cross for people while they were in the very act of murdering Him. He didn’t just do those things “back in the day”. He does them every day. He does them for you and for me. He makes rebels family. By His shed blood, we become His love relatives.

The Lord did not choose you and lavish his love on you because you were larger or greater than other nations (or because you deserved it - you were actually the least deserving!)... It was simply because the Lord loves you. 
Deuteronomy 7:7-8, parentheses added

Recently I was given the choice between two projects to take part in, and I was dragging my feet making a decision. I spent the weekend trying to finagle and wrestle my schedule to be able to do both things, but I knew that in the end, saying yes to one was saying no to the other.

My thoughts ran something like this: This measurable, quantifiable, visible thing seems like a better use of my time and energy. I could do something there. The thing over here is invisible and not likely to ever be seen. It’s doubtful anything will ever come of it.

And so it went around and around. By Monday afternoon, I retreated to the hammock to be still. A cooling breeze gently rocked me and I asked the Lord, “What would you have me do?” 

I’m sharing because maybe you’ve been there, too. Or maybe you’re there now. Trying to figure out which yes is the best yes. Fully aware that your time and energy are finite resources. Knowing that responsibility is the companion of choice. And asking the Lord, “What now?”

Nothing we do for the Lord is ever wasted.

If I’m honest, one thing I’m really good at is unbelief. Like when someone offers to do something for me, you can pretty much count on me saying something like, “Really? Are you sure?” So when the Spirit brought that word from 1 Corinthians 15:58 to mind, instead of breathing a huge sigh of relief, my response was this – “What if my effort is insignificant, if it never amounts to anything? Shouldn’t I do the thing with the bigger impact?”

The Lord is kind. He isn’t worn out by my unbelief or by my questions. And the very next person He brought to mind was the widow making her offering at the Temple. 

While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people putting their gifts into the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two pennies. Luke 21:1-2

Those two pennies weren’t going to make any difference to the operating budget of the Temple. They weren’t going to lead to a big building project or seed the benevolence fund. They weren’t going to feed the hungry or clothe the poor or help the oppressed. 

But she’s the one the Lord Jesus pointed out as exemplary. Her offering is the one that He praised. Why? Because while it might have represented basically nothing in the vast Temple accounts, it was everything to her. She gave everything she had to the Lord. 

“‘I assure you’, he said, ‘this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.’” Luke 21:3-4

The widow’s offering was small, but wholehearted. To be half-hearted is to be without enthusiasm or effort. And who really wants that? But to be wholehearted is to be fully committed. Sometimes our offerings don’t seem like they amount to much, or they go for the mundane, or no one sees them or acknowledges them or even understands them. But none of that matters to God. God sees what’s done in secret (Matthew 6:6) and He’s most concerned with the motives behind our giving. It’s the redemption and restoration of our hearts to wholeness that’s precisely the whole point, the most desired outcome, of all that He’s done on our behalf.

So whether you’re in a season of indecision, or of making decisions, or even if you’re confident you’re already walking the path marked out for you, may you live out what comes from the fullness of your heart.

What does the LORD your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the LORD your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. Deuteronomy 10:12