Giving God His due

In a prayer meeting this morning, someone mentioned giving God the worship and respect He is due. It occurred to me that we can't even begin to do that. What we have to give is so ludicrously inadequate, it's like those loaves and fishes for all those thousands of people. How people must have sniggered when they saw that little boy handing over his meagre lunch. But Jesus accepted that offering and in His hands it became enough... more than enough.

After Father's day, many a proud Dad will enter his office wearing the most hideous tie or the corniest pair of socks, or perhaps a badly knitted scarf, grubby from the sweaty little hands that laboured over it. And he wears them with pride. Why? Because they we re a gift from his precious child. Inappropriate, yes. Tasteless, yes. But appreciated because of what they represent, because the child has nothing better to give. So, too, our heavenly Father accepts the dirty, stained lives we give Him and in His hands they become enough.

No we cannot begin to give Him His due, but if we give Him all that we have, it gladdens His mighty heart.

Value systems

Man is obsessed with achievement, but we rank some achievements higher than others. We almost worship our sports heroes, our world class performers, but we don't feel like life-failures if we don't excel in that arena ourselves. Likewise performance skills.

However, academic prowess is an altogether different matter. As a society, we have become so obsessed with academic achievement that anyone who doesn't do well in this field feels like a total loser. We have even adopted a system of attaching numbers that supposedly measure one's potential. One of those systems is called IQ. The fact that the method of testing is limited and flawed appears to make no difference to the significance we attach to those numbers. Woe betide the child with the high IQ who scores only Ds at school (yet another system of numbering achievement), and how little we expect of the child with the below-average IQ. These numbers are taken so seriously.

But God has a different system of measuring. God is as little impressed by intelligence as He is by wealth. God values people according to His own measure. He rated each and every one of us valuable enough to be worth sending His only begotten Son to die for us, so that He could have a personal relationship with us.

So let's not get too hung up on those wretched numbers. Let's try to see ourselves through God's eyes. Valuable. Precious beyond price. Unique.