The greatest temptation for me is to wait for perfection and to save something just in case, so that I only end up giving my Beloved what I can spare…
How many times in my life do I hand to God what is spare?
I am happy to give Him whatever He asks, but after I have taken the best part for myself.
When I was a little girl, my mother taught me that I needed to offer food and drinks to guests in my home, but to do that I would be required to allow the guest to choose first. I would not be allowed to go through the offering first and reserve the best part for myself and simply hand over whatever was leftover afterwards. Instead, I was to allow the guests to choose the best of the offering and take – for myself – whatever was leftover and spare at the end of the selection.
And I have been thinking about how different that is from the way that I approach my Beloved…
“Jesus called his disciples to Him and said, ‘How many loaves have you?’ They said, ‘Seven, and a few small fish.’ And commanding the crowd to sit down on the ground, He took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks He broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied; and they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over.” (Matthew 15:29-37).
Christ did not ask the disciples for what was left over. He did not say, go to the shops nearby and ask the sellers for some spare food and I will make use of that. He did not say, call out to the crowd and see what people have spare. And when the boy approached the disciples with a mere seven loaves and a few fish, the boy did not say, I will give you six loave and a fish, but I will reserve something for myself because I am only planning on sharing the spare food.
Nowhere in that story is anyone taking care of themselves first and leaving the spare stuff for the others. Instead, they are making use of the stuff that they have – in its entirety – so that they never have to go back and say, but what about if I do not have anything leftover… And the reason that they are able to do that is because they are completely generous with God. And the reason they can be completely generous with God is because they completely trust Him.
That little boy took everything he had with him and gave it away. And the disciples looked at the tiny offering and saw that it was everything the child had and in turn took it to God.
And I guess the morale of the story – at least for me today – is that God is not asking for a lot. He is asking for EVERYTHING. And He is asking for everything NOW – right now. He does not want to wait and see if things change or improve or if I get better. He is not asking for perfection – He is perfect. Instead, He is asking me to surrender everything that I have and to trust that HE will work with it. And perhaps today I realise for the first time in my life, that the greatest temptation for me is to wait for perfection and to save something just in case, so that I only end up giving my Beloved what I can spare…
Truly my greatest temptation…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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