Day 28: Give and Take

I remember the moment very clearly. I was sitting in the basement of my college church, gathered with a group of other young women, doing a study on inheritance and what that means in the context of the Bible and a believer's life. We were watching a video lesson and the presenter asked a very simply question that might as well have been equivalent to a bolt of lightning for me:

In your heart of hearts, do you believe God is a giver or a taker?

I didn't hesitate. 

The involuntary, compulsive response that immediately sprung forth from my conscious was, yes, I believe God is a taker.

At that time in life, I probably could have listed a handful of things I had felt God had taken from me - dreams, a relationship or two, comfort, predictability. 

Idols, all of them. And I rightfully should have waved farewell to them, but they were things I had held so tightly to that when God did pry them from my hands, the loss of those things only came with pain and grief. God, you took this from me. Why? I didn't have the clarity of mind - or humility - to conceive of all the things God had instead given me. All I could take note of was all that he hadn't.

King Herod in Matthew 2 would have answered that question the same way I did in the basement of that church over a decade ago. Herod was ruler over Judea at the time of Jesus' birth. He had heard rumors of a "King of the Jews" being born in the area, a title he himself already bore. And for a king who was perpetually looking over his shoulder to see who was coming for him? The mere threat of another ruler coming for his title and his throne was no small matter in his paranoid mind.

So, he did what any unreasonable tyrant with an unsound mind would have done: 

He annihilated every boy under the age of two.

Herod was determined to take before he was taken from. He would take every boy under the age of two before any of those boys could rise up and take from him. 

As I read over this passage awhile back, I had the most startling revelation.  

I am Herod. 

See, we can be fooled - myself included - into thinking that it is God himself who came to "steal, kill, and destroy" (John 10:10). We can be fooled into thinking he is not only unmoved by our suffering and tragedy, but is, in fact, the perpetrator of our suffering and tragedy. 

It's a distortion of the devil, a lie straight from the pit of hell itself.

Like Herod, we can become convinced that Jesus is a threat to our identity and existence, a rival king who has the power to topple us. It's unsettling, this notion that we are not in complete control. It's a blow to our pride to think there exists someone whose power is superior to ours. Now, we may not going around consciously thinking that - but the depths of our hearts will testify otherwise. So, we work to annihilate anything that threatens our carefully curated worlds. We want to take before it's taken from us, whatever "it" may be.  

But this is the more accurate picture God wants us to see:

If we would but see him with open eyes, we would see that Jesus is not a king who has come to maliciously dethrone us, but a king who has lovingly saved us and shown us it's better that we never sit on the throne to begin with. 

He takes the things that need to be taken and he gives the things that need to be given. 

He's taken away the veil that clouds our minds, prohibiting us from seeing the beauty of the New Covenant of grace. 

"But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away" (2 Corinthians 3:14).

He's taken away the sins of the world, mine included.

"The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).

And in place of hardened minds and sin-sick hearts, he gives.

He gives light.

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world" (John 1:9).

He gives the Spirit (and he does so without limit, to boot).

"For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit" (John 3:34).

He gives life.

"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it" (John 5:21).

He gives peace.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).

He gives us endurance and encouragement.

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had..." (Romans 15:5).

He gives us victory, strength, wisdom, understanding, power, love, self-discipline, freedom, grace, and so much more. 

God gives far more than he takes. He doesn't give like the world gives, nor does he take like the world takes.

He takes the things that need to be taken and he gives the things that need to be given, and he does so in perfect wisdom and complete sovereignty.

So when someone asks you, in your heart of hearts, do you believe God is a giver or a taker, what will your response be?

May our involuntary, compulsive response be one that confidently declares that he is most certainly a giver in all the ways that matter.