The Gift Given

When the offering plate is passed across the pews on Sunday morning, it is an opportunity for those of us who worship there to offer gifts to God.  When I started preaching back a long time ago, it was my standard response to those who wanted to withhold giving as a way of protesting the church's involvement with certain ministries deemed to be questionable.  Looking back I wonder if my defense of the church was more about my naivete, or hopefulness than reality.  

The deeper I got into the years of ministry, the church seemed to be more shaped and influenced by what I came to know as the consensus of popular opinion rather than the Word of God.  It not only troubled me, but caused me to wonder if the gift I wanted to give to God was getting to His hands.  More than anytime in all my years does it seem that the church has been politicized, suffered from theological schisms, and its sense of community broken into pieces by a spirit of antagonism instead of glued together by a spirit of love. 

With all of this staring me in the face, I still wonder some Sunday mornings about my gift reaching the hands of God.   For the time being, I have resolved this confusion by remembering that what I give is a gift.  Certainly, what I give to Him is only what He has first given to me, but as I turn it loose on Sunday morning, it is also my gift to Him.  Such is how I give it.  Such is the spirit of the act of giving.  Like any gift once it is given, it is no longer mine to control.  It is gone.  There is a blessing in the giving.  I am not going to allow the chaos and confusion to deny me the blessing of giving the gift.