An excerpt from my journal, June 2001
Background: I have a bunch of stuff lying around in boxes right now (in 2010), packed away during the remodel of my home office. The page that contains the following just happened to be sitting on top of a pile while moving stuff back in. It’s dated June 29, 2001 — less than a year after I got married and about a month after moving from South Bend to Indianapolis to start my job at Franklin College. The entry, like a lot of entries from that time, is addressed to God.
Part of what it means for You to to be powerful and me to be weak is that I produce nothing and You provide everything. The language itself is telling — I “produce”, and end up with objects, manufactured items that do nothing but exist and act as a lens for my pride. You give — and I end up with a variety of elements in my life that can serve functional purposes (like my house, or my intelligence) but above all point past the object itself to You Who gave it.
And so part of what it means to “acknowledge [You] before men” is to give credit where credit is due and not act like Your gifts are the fruits of my work. “God loves a cheerful giver.” This isn’t constrained to money, although money is part of the picture. It also hits upon intangibles like time, hospitality, knowledge, intellect, even sadness and struggles. Anything that You give to me, I am to redistribute with gladness. I think the cheerfulness must come from the fact that You are full to overflowing with everything that is truly real, and that You’ve chosen to overflow upon me when You didn’t have to.
Again, You exist infinitely at all levels and on all scales. And yet you send gifts to me, not only just one person but a tedious and sinful person at that, in the present time. This is the “streams that make glad the city of God” in the midst of the shattering of bows and the melting of mountains.
