DeeAnne & Hannah

I’ve never thought of the act of Christian giving as merciful.  I mean, I have, but only in the sense that when I give to someone, monetarily or by serving, I’M being merciful.  I’ve never thought of how this comment to tithe, this “if you love me, feed my sheep” is a merciful command, seeing as it’s an alternative to what God could require.

 

For expediency’s and my focus’s sake, I won’t even go into martyrdom, which requires your actual life instead of the watered down “daily dying” most Christians convince themselves they’re doing.  I just mean in simple regards to money.

 

God doesn’t NEED your money, nor does He need mine.  He’s not in need of anything, and yet He commands me to give.  He’ll be glorified in my closed or open-handedness, because nothing I do here can diminish His beauty.  But instead of flaunting this absolute lack of need of me, He allows me to participate in what He’s trying to do.  he lets me point to Him in my own feeble way, like a child pointing to the summer sun, like anyone could miss it, feeling useful.

 

So when He tells me in His Word to give back 10%, He’s almost being indulgent, allowing me to feel like I’m helping.  And when He sends DeeAnne, a beautiful woman with eyes like sea glass, I can give her a few meager bucks and stare into the face of the one Jesus loves, His Bride.  He lets me hold her close for a small moment and smell cigarettes and time and feel at home in her arms because we’re both so human and so His.  If He wanted my money to go to DeeAnne, He could take it in all sorts of ways.  Instead He lets me look into faces, hear the stories, hand over money that I feel I downright need, and each time die a little more to me and live a small bit more in Him.

 

How merciful and how striking, this act of giving I so often begrudge. 

 

So I have no freakin clue where my rent’s coming from in the next few days.  Am I supposed to care about this strain when I’ve been given such riches as last night?  Sharing in His glory even though I’ve no right to call it my own.

 

No one can kill that.  No one can dull it or steal it, like every single thing I see around me.

 

I need more of this, because frankly this world sucks in comparison to the glimpses of the eternal He allows me to see.  I’m far too attached to what I feel and see and walk through.  The fact is:  nothing I do matters unless it’s pointing to Him.  Because even though He doesn’t need my help or my not-pure love gestures, it’s those things I do that will matter most and will set me on fire, kill me and make me live, define me and dissolve my self image.

 

He’s the only freedom I know.  He’s everything.