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The Pink
Room: Thoughts About Intentional Living
Chapter
16/ Generosity.
Part 3
(Previous post contain the previous chapters.)
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There is a story in the Bible about a woman reaching out and
touching Jesus' hem in a crowd and she is healed of life-long illness. He asks “who
touched the hem of my garment?” Sometimes the details jump out, why bother
pointing out it was the hem?
In reality the hem held the reminders of the law, the
tassels with 613 knots, Jewish men carried with them at all times. Representing
things like their significance in God’s sight, their authority to speak the
scriptures and references to the promised Messiah, and that healing would be in
His wings. It is more likely that the woman that reached out was strategic and
her faith that the wings, the tassels on the garment of Jesus, could offer her
healing.
In another dialogue a woman says what amounted to: all I
want from you is what you'd feed to the dogs. Not your seconds, not your left-overs,
not what you would give away because you didn't care for it—we seem to think she
was asking for his trash and because it was His it was good enough for her.
Something else was happening here as well.
Jesus indicated that, just as He needed to serve Israel
first and it wasn’t quite time to work on the Gentiles, even in spite and just
like with house hold pets…here and there a morsel goes to those loved pets
before it is time for dinner. Her great faith was a blessing to Him and this
loving gesture was met with healing love.
The truth is that both women shook the Pharisees and the
disciples to their core. Nothing Jesus did was in the right order, serving the
right people, addressing cleanliness and tradition—it was all messed up. The
outrageous generous love of God showed up and messed up their tidy
understanding and their anticipation of what was next.
When I combine all of that--the humility, the work through
Him, it comes out something like this (I guess you could call it a prayer):
Lord, please help me, it is only by Your power my life actually matters. In the
long run, it is only by Your grace I can live for you at all. Please lead me in
all I do, let it be for You, because I want to love You back. I will try not to
mess up too badly. I know people are watching and I would like to do okay by
them. I know they all, no matter what their attitude or disposition or
position, matter to You, and You are in them (if they know it or not) and I
want to treat You right. I am no better than anyone else--and because I am
aware of this I actually should serve more and better. The truth is I don't
have the strength to do all of that, or to remember all of that, so I'm going
to need You now more than ever. Amen.
The last ten years have taught be about the fleeting nature of hope. These years have also taught me of the one who inspires true hope.
If I had to sum up some of the lessons: God cares enough to bring you to the end of yourself, so go willingly to make it less painful. God wants you to allow Him to take care of you. God wants you to be whole and healthy no matter the cost. God likes you. God does not need you to do anything but you won't be able to help “doing things” after He's got you. God perfectly understands and therefore understands you perfectly.
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The
journey of faith is slowly falling in love with Jesus. And if we do fall in
love with Him, we slowly become enamored and don’t want to be like us, but like
Him.
Generosity? Why is this in a section about generosity?
Jesus, being here with us showed self-less, infinite generosity. Going beyond
understanding to deliver the free gift, this cannot be purchased or earned, of
eternal life with Him.
Our model of self-less gift giving in the purest form is a
man who died on a cross.
