Giving Your All
The lesson that Sunday morning in Life Group was from Luke 4. The narrative was Peter’s call after the miracle of the boatful of fish. The theme was following Jesus call to “follow Me,” fully and without boundaries or limits, no matter what.
A lot of extreme things were said. “Give it all to God.” “Make the sacrifice.” “Have no fear of what would happen if you give it all to God.”
Yet, that part of me that is intellectually oppositional about almost everything whispered, “But what about….”
And in this case, I had two examples sitting in the room with me.
Two women in our class, relatively young, are widows. Both have lost their husbands, early. I will not get into the particulars to protect their privacy.
I could not help but think, “And some have given all to God and still there was awful, rending loss. Giving their all really did mean giving their all.”
And I don’t think we really believe that will happen. If we surrender and give it all, God really won’t expect it, and we can live our happy middle class lives with some modifications, but not really any jarring differences or missing pieces, like husbands or children or reasonable healthy lives.
I also could not help thinking that there is a lack of empathy in so much of our aspirational, “give it to Jesus” teaching. In my mind, these women do not need to give it all. They have passed over that level. They have grappled with the fact that giving it all means there is no limit to that “all.” That there is no guarantee that a husband or child or wife or life itself will not be part of that “all.
The “all” is not getting off of social media, or getting up on Sunday morning, or giving 10% of our income. “All” means no control over what God might take in this bargain. And after that bargain falls through, we learn there was no bargain involved in the first place.
“I am a sinful man; depart from me,” Peter said. Jesus’ response: Follow me. No “and you’ll get a boatload of fish every week from now on,” or “you’ll be the undisputed leader of this group,” or “you’ll live a long respected life.” Not even “I’ll affirm you every chance I get.” (Jesus had to be pretty rough with Peter.)
As much as I hate to admit it, I get into watching short videos on Facebook or YouTube. I have never touched the TikTok app, but I still see the videos elsewhere. They seem random, but they are not. Facebook knows I like Dry Bar Comedy, cute little kids, dog videos, certain commentators, and Christian topics.
My hero, Joni Tada, came up on one of them. And this was, essentially, the text of her clip: She prayed as a young person that God would draw her close to Him, really get a hold of her. And she broke her neck. In the hospital she said, “Seriously? This is how you answered the prayer? How can I ever trust God again.” And her resolution struck like a knife, because it is the only one we have: “where else could I go?”
Yes, where else do we go for answers? To whom else do we go for trust and direction and meaning?
We can walk away. People have.
66 From that time many of His disciples went [p]back and walked with Him no more. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”
68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the [q]Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Giving one’s all is not about how ardently you can profess your commitment to Christ, how big your “all” is. It is holding on and not walking away when the all really is stripped away because you literally might not even be able to walk away physically.
Be careful when you talk about your “all.” Realize what it means, and realize that some people already have given it and you may not know about it.
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