Humble Offerings
Sharing Ordinary Gifts in Audacious Faith
Two evenings each week, our cruise ship passengers are invited to enjoy a Cabaret show: a full lineup of regional dances, instrumentals, and even a few magic tricks, performed by members of the crew. In the days leading up to the performance, my colleague and I are also fervently entreating our passengers to bring their talents under the cabaret spotlights. Fervently, because we don’t just want an additional talent to grace our stage… we need one.
My crew is a tight team, tending our guests as unassuming service people by day, and entertaining them as glittering stage performers by night. A small group of dancers and a long set list requires them to be master face-changers. We rely on the buffer time of passenger performances while they scurry to complete their most elaborate costume changes. If my colleague and I can’t coax any willing volunteers to perform, the music will play to a darkened stage while our audience fidgets in an awkward lull.
Some nights, the passengers who answer our call come to the stage trembling. It's the first time they've held a microphone in their hands, or stood before the eyes of a hungry crowd. When they take the stage, a hush inevitably falls over the room, and instinctively, we hold our breath.
What will be their offering?
Will see see a singular talent tonight? Are we now standing in the presence of an undiscovered star? Is this holy ground?
And the mystery guest will take their cue, and pour out their treasure at our feet.
And, no, they are not spectacular, and no, we know we won’t be seeing them on TV anytime soon. As it turns out, this entertainer at center stage seems no more specially talented than the rest of us. Perhaps they even appear distinctly untalented.
But we still hush. We still sit up at attention, spellbound. Why?
Because along with their ordinary gift, they have brought an unusual offering after all.
They are offering us their bravery. And it strikes us to the core of where our own, once-unrestrained, children’s hearts used to beat.
No one has yet told this shimmering starlet in our midst that they are not enough.
And we won’t be the first.
We let this strange music raise goosebumps on our arms, and savor the abiding joy and innocence that polishes each off-key note; each heavy-footed maneuver across the dance floor. And we consider... if this brave one can defy the accusing cries of insufficiency, and brazenly bring their ordinary gifts to the party, maybe we can too. Maybe our offerings, and even ourselves can be enough after all.
Some industrious and malicious spirit of doubt has done excellent and terrible work, whispering to the children of God that they lack.
What gives you the right to take the stage with those real dancers, those real singers?
What authority do you have to speak on such an important subject?
How can you dare put your name in the running for that position?
What could you possibly have to offer?
Compare those hateful whispers to the words spoken tenderly to Adam, in the just-fallen Eden, when God ended the first round of a heartbreaking game of hide-and-seek. A now fig-leaf-adorned Adam was found cowering in inexplicable shame, hiding from the eyes of the God who loved him perfectly:
"Who told you you were naked?"
Before that moment, the first couple had been the authoritative, confident, satisfied administrators and cultivators of a lush, fruitful world. There was no such concept as nakedness.... they were complete, lacking nothing.
Humanity’s present habitat is far removed from that abandoned paradise. But God remains the same, still whole, still complete in himself. Sufficiency is in him, and available for us to claim in faith once more.
God is not surprised when we show up to our stages with “ordinary” offerings. He’s well aware of our impoverished state. When we open our hands to give what’s in them, what he sees is an otherworldly love spilling out of free willing hearts. He measures the offering by what’s found in our hearts, not what’s held up in our faithful hands.
I hear this clearly in the verses of the Little Drummer's song, every Christmas. Every Winter season, without fail, the words brings me to my knees.
'I am a poor boy too.'
'I have no gift to bring'.... or, at least, not one that's fit to give a King.
I feel that! I am a poor boy, too! Whatever gifts I may have to share can't possibly be enough to meet the need or expectation before me... not for a king, not even for a stranger. All will do better to wait for another: Someone who has more worthy gifts to give. Someone who can serve them properly.
But if I can somehow harness that innocence, or that audacity, to ask the Lord, as the little drummer did, "Shall I play for you?", his answer will be Yes.
And when 'I play my best for him'........ he will smile.
Insanity.
But God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful."
1 Corinthians 1:27
Just as the Serpent in the Garden once whispered a preposterous deception to Eve- that she lacked more and better knowledge beyond the provision of God,
Now God whispers one even more impossible-to-believe secret to us:
We’re still enough for him. He still loves us perfectly. He still desires to use us, and even our small, empty hands to bless the world.
It's audacious, because on this side of Eden, we only know nakedness. We don't see the lush, flourishing garden anymore, we see hunger, and unrest, and injustice, and destruction, and need. Such deep need.
Our tiny, flawed efforts to be peacemakers come up short. Our feeble attempts to rescue our corroding planet mock us; they are too little and too late. Our kind words, meant to build up and heal, are only words; they fall flat. And our voices, made to be a heavenly symphony, are weak; they crack.
But make no mistake, humble offerings, given in audacious faith change the atmosphere. Cracks appear where fear has built her foundations. Hard hearts begin to soften at the sound. An invisible drama is playing out, children, running with scissors, crayons, and the blueprint of a new garden.
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms
1 Peter 4:1
My tireless team has finished another round of costume changes, and now bask gratefully in the interlude; a precious chance for them to catch their breath and rest their tired limbs.
As our special guest pours out the joyful music from their innocent heart, they give glory to their Designer. The One who fashioned them loves this voice that he's made to sound like none other. He loves the wild, untethered, graceless grace with which they twirl and spin. Because they're his. And he makes beautiful things.
Doubt infects like a virus, but so does Hope. Properly contracted, Hope gets under your skin, lifts your eyes heavenward, and makes your child's heart beat again.
"The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened." Matthew 13:33
Twirl, and spin, beautiful one! You're wonderfully made, and now we all know it, full well. Be audacious. And now I tell myself too- Believe God for this crazy thing.
When whispers tell you lies of what you’re not, show them what you’re made of. Add your smeared brushstrokes of beauty to the canvas. Don’t miss out on adding your unbound notes of cheerful music to the song. Your bravery to believe that you are sufficiently equipped for every good work is uprooting long-entrenched weeds in a thorn infested garden.
Our performers took the stage trembling, but their timidity didn't last. They took their final bows with gorgeous smiles, and satisfied confidence.
Let those spirits of doubt now be the ones to tremble, as we refuse to give them audience. We don’t have time for them anyway. We are far too preoccupied with audacious beauty, lighting up the world, one brave, faithful face at a time.
