A gift for God

ByHal Hammons

Let’s say you wanted to give a gift to God.  And why not, given all He has done for all of us?  What sort of gift would you consider to be appropriate?

You could give Him what you don’t want.  That’s what some of the Jews in Malachi’s day were doing.  It’s certainly easier on the pocketbook, and you spend less time shopping.  But then, “the lame and sick” (Malachi 1:8) don’t seem to have pleased God.  He saw it as blasphemous; a “great King,” one to be “feared among the nations,” required better than that (Malachi 1:13-14).

If that sounds too meager, you could offer Him what you can spare.  Maybe if you had two of something, you could bear to part with one.  Jesus saw some of the rich doing that in the temple, giving “out of their surplus” (Luke 21:1-4).  But He did not seem to be very impressed with that; in fact, He was more impressed with the poor widow who gave “all that she had to live on,” even though it was just two small copper coins.  So maybe it’s not so much about the actual amount.

You could get Him something at would make you fit in.  If everyone else gives X, give X.  If everyone else seems content with just giving Y, Y should do just fine.  You get to let other people do your thinking for you, and you don’t run the risk of looking too flashy or too miserly; your friends would appreciate that.  But then, is the point of gift-giving to impress or satisfy the other gift-givers?  It would seem that acquiring the favor of God, not of men, is the real point (Galatians 1:10).

On the other hand, you might go the opposite way and get Him something to make you stand out.  Something remarkable.  Something over-the-top.  If pleasing God is the point, why not please Him like no one has ever pleased Him before?  But that has its problems, too.  In the first place, we read about servants of God such as Abraham, Job, Stephen, Paul, and any number of others, and it occurs to us that “standing out” in such a crowd might be beyond our capacity.  And besides that, is it really possible to give so generously as to be remarkable in any way, really, considering all He has given to us?

What keeps you out of trouble is always a practical solution.  Find every T that needs to be crossed, and cross it properly and completely.  How could there be any objection to that?  If the preacher can prove you are required to contribute 10 percent of your earnings to the work of the church, or attend Sunday evening services and Sunday and Wednesday Bible studies, or sing in an audible tone of voice, or study your Bible and pray regularly in your hours at home, well then, absolutely!  It’s like Mom telling you she wants something pretty for Mother’s Day and you give her a rose cut from her own bush.  It fits the definition, so surely it is acceptable, right?  After all, Isaiah wrote about people who honored God with their lips (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:7-9).  Then again, they didn’t exactly put their stamp of approval on the T-crossers.  They seemed to think rote compliance did not always come from the heart — and that the heart was ultimately the most important thing.  Hey, we might be onto something here.

Here’s a thought.  Why don’t you give Him what He is due?  Since He made us, doesn’t that mean we owe Him everything?  And what does He want?  Simply for us to love Him with our whole heart (Matthew 22:37).

Fair warning: It’s tougher than it sounds to do that.  Otherwise, everyone who calls himself a Christian would be doing it already — since it so clearly is what He wants, and all He wants.  But I bet we could do it if we really put our hearts, minds and backs into it. 

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Bigger

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The story goes that Yul Brynner, career flying after the success of The King and I and The Ten Commandments, was a bit annoyed at the upstart television actor named Steve McQueen that he had brought into the production of The Magnificent Seven.  McQueen had a habit of playing with his hat, wiping his brow, basically anything to get the audience’s eyes on him while he and Brynner were in a scene.

It went both ways, though.  Brynner, several inches shorter than McQueen, arranged for small piles of dirt to be nearby for him to stand on when acting with McQueen.  McQueen took delight in kicking the dirt piles over.  Ah, the famous camaraderie of thespians!

McQueen’s antics worked, it seems.  He became one of the biggest screen stars of the 1960s.  Brynner’s career, on the other hand, trended downward more and more.  My generation knows him as much as anything for those creepy lung cancer commercials he made just before he died.

Who is “bigger”?  Men have been fighting over that vague concept for centuries.  And women have their own version of the battle; they’re just not as likely to literally kill anyone in pursuit of the blue ribbon.  “We just tease her until she develops an eating disorder,” one female TV character once observed.

But life shouldn’t be a competition for Christians. Our reward is heavenly (Hebrews 11:16).  And heaven has no limit to its capacity.  “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).  So if someone isn’t bumping us out of line for heaven, why should we worry if he insists on being “bigger” in this life?  That’s his problem.  I don’t have to make it my problem.

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My mother’s relationship with the deer in her community has been fodder for a great many of my articles over the years.  She has named half a dozen of them.  They give birth in her yard.  They eat out of her hand.  They watch her from outside her kitchen window and start gathering in the back yard when she approaches the door.  Cattle feed and watermelon rinds will do that, apparently.

My mother is the gentlest soul I know.  Seeing her interact with the deer kind of makes sense, in a weird sort of way.  Dad’s relationship with them is somewhat more puzzling.  Although certainly a gentle soul himself, Dad was the one who taught me to aim a rifle at one of these creatures and shoot to kill.  I spent my entire childhood staring up at the mounted head of a deer the size of a small cow.  My dad’s work.  I ate many a mess of chicken fried steak made with venison — cooked by my mom, so I guess she is complicit as well, in a way.  And now the great deer slayer is feeding them cantaloupe — not to fatten them up, but just because it is pleasant, peaceful way to pass a decade or two.