Back Snap

Although this is generally a blog about Christian service, I am writing about yesterday's rather revealing life experience to encourage my own humility, compassion, and empathy for future reference.  As I was getting ready for church, putting on pantyhose no less, my hands seized and I felt a pop just below my right shoulder blade.  I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't call for help.  There I sat, immobilized, in excruciating pain.  When the worst had passed I managed, with effort, to get to my feet and make my way downstairs, sending the family off to church. 

Most of my day was spent enduring spasms while lying on heat and ice. The rest of my body was pain-free, but I couldn't get my focus off the sporadic schisms that stabbed from my back through to my sternum, creating some kind of muscular knot.  I did wonder if the Body of Christ should respond to a wounded member with this kind of extreme focus, but more than that, I wanted relief.

Later, much later, I remembered last week's Bible lesson on suffering and was mindful that in discomfort I really didn't care--or want to care--what God had in mind for that moment.   Hadn't we read Scripture and discussed how God allows suffering for His glory and our good?  That we are to endure and bear up under it, dependent on His grace, exhibiting the character of Christ (Hebrews 12:1-3, 1 Peter 2)?  Quite honestly, that was the last thing on my mind.

The take-away?  No matter how much we know or how much God has taught us to rely on Him, each of us is one hundred percent human.  There are periods and circumstances when all we can do it hold onto some form of life and sanity, praying for light at the end of the tunnel.  My pain became bearable within a short period of time, but there are others--many others--who suffer chronic illness, pain, family situations, and life circumstances that cloud all but the most immediate.  It was a brief lesson in empathy...and I'm chronicling it here in hopes it will not soon be forgotten.

Keep Something Behind the Counter

I hadn't planned on it.  I just happened.  When I opened my Bible to read the next chapter of Leviticus, my eyes caught on the previous chapter and something clicked.  There are times that a verse taken by itself is exposed.  Don't get me wrong, context is vital to Biblical interpretation, but to see a verse alone sometimes reveals detail that might otherwise be overlooked.

I have often wondered about  term "leaven" as used in the Bible: the leaven of the Pharisees, leaven in the dough, how dangerous a small amount of leaven can be. I have had no satisfying answer until today as I sat down to read chapter 3 and my eyes reread verse 11 from chapter 2.

"No grain offering, which you bring to the LORD, shall be made with leaven, for you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to the LORD."

It suddenly struck me.  Leaven gives a false appearance. It puffs up and expands the essence of what is there, making it look larger. It adds an airy texture when eaten. And, in the same way yeast, or leaven, would mislead honey adds sweetness making grain more appealing, more tasty, more indulgent.  It's not that God doesn't like things big or sweet or good.  He made all things.  He IS big and sweet and good.  But when it comes from me, a person, a created being, the focus is due God, not myself.  How easy it is for me to puff myself up, to try to appear bigger and sweeter and more attractive to others (sacrifices were offered in public, remember) and to God.


The leaven of life is pride. A little goes a long way. I apply it when I seek to draw attention to my actions or appearance or worth, puffing up what little I have, expanding the essence of what is actually there. I present myself as having greater importance and substance than what an honest appraisal would reveal. The honey is much the same, although it makes me think more of flattery, of sweetening the deal. I may be sour as a lemon, bitter as lye, but present myself to God and others in a falsely appealing way.

So for now, today?  The offering of my everyday life, the grain that comes in and goes out, must first be finely ground, well masticated, used fully. It is what it is. I am what I am. There is nothing special, better than, or exceptional other than the fact that God has sovereignly ordained each part. Humility, a lack of leaven, is practiced as I present what He has given with gratitude and honesty.

Chuck Swindoll's grandfather taught him to "always keep something behind the counter."  This doesn't mean  we should hold back what is due; rather, we should be honest about what is in the back room.  If I don't have any for sale, I shouldn't put it out for display.  May I say the same is true of our Christian lives.  Speaking to myself: If I don't have any in the backroom, it has no place on the counter.

Consecrating the Daily Grind

Back to Leviticus!  (It doesn't have quite the ring of the "Back to Genesis" ads on the radio.)

As I opened my Bible to Leviticus chapter 2 this morning, I prepared myself for the fact that not every day's Bible reading brings eye-popping, heart-stopping insights.  But God surprised me once again.

This chapter gave instruction for the presentation of grain offerings.  Living with a farmer, grain is a daily part of our lives.  We have bins of grain from last fall's harvest that are waiting to be delivered to market.  We have grain in the barn we are feeding our expectant ewes and growing calf.  Our son has a jar of wheatberries (grains of wheat) on his headboard to snack on when he's in the mood.  I didn't expect to see anything exciting in this chapter on grain.

But as I read, this is what I discovered:
There were three constant ingredients offered with the grain. The first was oil (v. 1,2,4,5,6,7,15,16). The second was salt (v. 13). The third, less noticeable (it is mentioned only once, but in reference to all grain sacrifices) was frankincense (v. 1). Grain was the gift, but it was to be anointed with oil and frankincense and seasoned with salt.
 


Putting my symbolic-and-contextual-interpretation hat on, it was easy to explain the oil. Throughout the Bible, oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit—in the anointing of kings, in the temple. The working and presence of the Holy Spirit should be evident in my giving. The salt? My only thought here is the verse that instructs us to season our words with grace (Col. 4:6). So salt represents grace (?). And frankincense, brought by one of the magi, represents Christ (?).  (I did cheat here by looking up a commentary and confirming these last two.)

Why all the detail?  Does it really matter? This is where the eye-popping, heart-stopping reached out and grabbed me. Even the most mundane, every day, common sacrifice (or gift) is to be offered reverently, with grace, by the working of the Spirit, lavished by Jesus Christ’s redeeming blood. My daily life should not consist of moments never given, or given carelessly, or given grudgingly, or apart from the work of Christ. The moments, the grains of my day, are to fall from my fingers as those spoken with grace, lubricated by the Spirit, releasing the aroma of Christ. Perhaps the things I do would be different if I saw them in this light. More likely, the ways in which I do them and the freedom of heart I experience as the finely-ground grain is presented would rise in praise to the God who provided the seeds of grain and the components of the sacrifice.

The grains of life are spent apart from my giving.  If only I would consecreate and give them with a heart of gratitude, open hands, and dependence....Jesus, take and bless. In your name and for your glory….