Offering

I always stuff my purse with tissues when I go to General Assembly, the annual gathering for leaders of our church denomination.  I have ample opportunities to use them during the worship, teaching, prayer times and sharing with other folks who understand the particular mantle of ministry.  This June’s gathering, held at beautiful Cherry Hills Community Church in Denver, was no exception.  My children were enjoying an incredible week, planned for them by the youth staff.  The music was led by an amazing ensemble of instruments and voices and I was surrounded by praising voices and uplifted hands of ruling and teaching elders and missionaries and their families, from ministries all over the world.  The facility and setting were breath taking, and I’d even had opportunities to meet and pray with other women in the attached coffee shop and on the porch rockers with a view of the mountains. It should have been just the sort of experience which would make me ready to return to our home church, feeling refreshed and renewed.

So why was I feeling so disheartened? I found myself stewing over the contrast between what I could see of God’s work in this place and our church’s weekly reality.  Here I saw the scores of volunteers, beautiful facilities, massive amounts of resources and ministries, and poignantly felt our church's budget struggles, lack of a youth program, and sprinkling of folks each Sunday morning.  As the worship leader, I felt keenly aware of my musical limitations. It was clear to see God at work here, in this incredible place.  At home, not so much. I began to feel consumed by the desire to be someplace other than where we’d been sent, giving something more than we’d been given.

At my most vulnerable moment, God brought to mind an image of the poor widow who placed her two small coins in the temple treasury, in Luke 21. As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.  “I tell you the truth, “ he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others,  All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on” (Luke 21:1-4).

The widow’s relatively small offering did not deter her from offering it. I imagine she could have stayed at home, judging her contribution insufficient, her limited resources better spent upon herself. Her primary concern was not impact. Her thoughts were not on herself at all. Trusting in God, she gave whole heartedly, of what she had, right where she was, and allowed God to determine the value of it.

I was simultaneously comforted and rebuked by the Word.  I’d justified my unrest and longing as a passion to be more effective for the kingdom, but it was more tied to my pride than I wanted to admit.  I wanted my efforts linked to a ministry with the greatest possible, most visible impact.

What I had to give, felt something like those two small coins, and I was holding them back, wanting to give more or better; to make a bigger splash. However small or insignificant my offering might seem, I was to offer myself, my gifts, and my limitations, and my setting whole-heartedly to the Lord. I needed to get my focus off of myself, and back onto Him.  

I remembered the widow's example that next Sunday, as I offered what I had by leading from the keyboard along with two singing friends, for our group of 45.  Then I connected with some folks over coffee and cookies, and taught about Paul trusting in tough times with my class of four kindergarten and 1^st grade girls.

After a moving week at General Assembly, I'm asking God to continue to remind me that it is not my job to judge the worth or the impact of what I bring.  Simply to bring it.  To Him and to His.