A suitable sacrifice

"A sacrifice is the giving over of something that has value to the giver . . . " - Dr. Tony Evans

Just for the record, I don't often listen to Dr. Evans' program.  His preaching style just doesn't suit me, and sometimes I think his theology is just a touch off kilter.  He certainly is enthusiastic, though, and I find that there are nuggets he shares that God uses to direct my thoughts very differently from what Dr. Evans may have intended.

That's the case with the program I heard about half of last night.  I'm taking this quote (well, maybe it's a paraphrase) completely out of context, though Dr. Evans was careful not to imply that anything that we do obliges God to act in a particular way toward us.  But this quote got me thinking about what I consider valuable that I might offer to God.

For in sacrifice you take no delight
Were I to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased
My sacrifice is a contrite spirit
A humbled, contrite heart You will not spurn - Ps 51: 16-17

What God desires from me is my trusting obedience. That's often the hardest thing for me to give. I usually know what I (think I) want, and it is often at odds with what Scripture and the Church tell me are God's desire for me.  Sometimes I fall back into the trap of thinking of God as a stern parent who wants to keep me from having fun (I'm pretty sure that this isn't what Jesus meant when he said that we must be like children!); at such times it can be hard to believe that what God desires for me is greater than what I want for myself.  Yet if I have any faith in God at all I must believe this about him.  So when I want my own way, when I don't see the harm in my own desires - or even perceive possible harm in choosing God's revealed way over what I think or the world says would be better - well, I believe that to sacrificially subject my own will and wisdom to God's pleases him more than any other thing I might offer. Further, when I do truly do that, I will withhold nothing else from him.

Challenges to obediently trusting that God knows and reveals what is best for us - for me - come in many different forms. In our increasingly sexualized world, the beautiful sexual expression that God has given us is taken out of context more often than it isn't, and we're encouraged to think of ourselves and others in ways that we were never intended to think of most people. In our increasingly material world, we're encouraged to disregard the selfishness of purchasing our next creature comfort while our brothers and sisters throughout the world struggle against starvation, war and oppression. In our increasingly technologized world (to coin a phrase), we're encouraged to eschew simplicity and humility and embrace the latest scientific marvels and all that comes with them.  In our increasingly ambitious world, we're encouraged to put advancement and experiences ahead of relationships.  etc.

The gifts of coming into God's presence, acknowledging that He is so much greater than we are (praising him!) and just spending time with him, and then of truly connecting with those he has put into our lives, become neglected as we get wrapped up in investing ourselves in our temporary physical world at the expense of our spiritual lives. I'm not talking here about shirking the legitimate demands which our lives and the people in them place on us, which we may also resent as an imposition on us, but of carving out our time with God first so that we might recognize and respond to those demands with wisdom and insight. Instead, we often view this as another demand on our time which we resent rather than a gift from God which he wishes us to give ourselves, too.

And then there is the challenge of how to encourage others to see the nature of such decisions without trying to impose those decisions on them, and without thinking ourselves superior in some way because the specifics of their struggle is so different from our own.

Well, all of this could turn into a rant or a lament instead of the reminder God wants it to be for me to come spend some time with him . . .