I like the sausage-maker’s ad, “Our WURST is our BEST.” But I’ll bet that won’t fly with your boss, since we all know that our boss wants and expects our best, not our worst. So what hinders us from consistently giving and living our best?
I’m not trying to elicit excuses, but rather I want to encourage realistically dealing with our weaknesses. My own list of hindrances includes: self-centeredness, failure to comprehend God and how much He loves me, failure to comprehend the depth of the Father and Son’s sacrifice on the cross for me, failure to comprehend my privilege and opportunity to know and pray to Jesus, failure to take initiative to respond in a manly and accountable manner (e.g. I can be cheap, unthankful, full of excuses, take things and God for granted, and take the easy path of least resistance).
Conversely what helps me “man-up” and give my best? Succinctly I need to settle some things first, and then step up and demonstrate the things I say I believe; then finally the seeds of satisfaction will grow. I need to resettle “It’s NOT about me, my life each day is chock full of surprises, waiting for me to seek, see and seize them. Then I can be truly thankful for them. I can change from a “Got To” to a “Get To” attitude, and then joyfully and thankfully do my best.
Are you more concerned about the possibility of being passed over for a promotion, or the possibility of missing out on receiving a new assignment full of responsibility and authority? Those rare folks who focus on the latter will often get both. But we all know that faithfulness in small things often leads eventually to bigger things, but failure to obey instructions rarely does.
Now let’s think together about how such thinking might apply to giving our best to God. Actually He is the very source of all our life and all that we have. God the Father and God the Son paid for you and I the highest price ever paid, so that all our sins could be forgiven and then we could be restored to a righteous relationship with God.
Since God wants and plans the very best for us, how can we be “cheap” with Him and fail to cheerfully give Him our very best? What we give God back (in time, energy, service to others, money, thanksgiving, prayer and praise) clearly reveals the state of our heart. Stinginess reveals a sour, self-centered, hard heart. But a clean and forgiven heart freely gives to God and others.
When our best is a struggle, it is time for a refreshing refocus like reviewing with thankfulness God’s best gift He gave to me. God’s special gift to me reveals such unconditional and transforming love, that it demands my Life, my Love, my All!
