Picked for the Team!

"Who is the best basketball player, ever?"  I asked my son.
"Micheal Jordan."  He answered without much thought.
"If he called you today and asked you to be on his team would you do it?"
"YES!"  He said like I was crazy to ask.
"What if you had to move, live in a cardboard box, would you do pretty much anything in your power to be on that team?"  I asked
A succession of Yeses followed each question without hesitation.  Undoubtedly, he would do anything in his power to be on that team.
"Would you feel like you were helping Micheal Jordan by being on that team?" 
"No."  Again, looking at me like I was insane.
"Well, that is what I feel like when God asks me to be on His team - I am not helping, and it is a privilege, and I am willing to do anything to be on it.  See, working for God is not serving Him, it is Him serving me with the privilege of letting me participate."
I am not sure he completely got it, but I hope so.

Sometimes, I am ready to pull my hair out in frustration. I whisper up a quiet prayer asking God to please accept this sacrifice I am making.  Please accept my offering of love and exhaustion.  But really, is this an offering that I am giving Him?  When God offers us the gift of work, do we do it as if it is a blessing to US???  Is my offering an offering of thanks and praise for allowing me to have the opportunity at the hard things that sometimes come with the work He has given me?

This thought was something God was challenging me with the other night.  I think of my "work for the Lord" sometimes as a gift to Him, and it is in a sense, because it pleases Him to have my focus on him and my whole heart given over to Him...Big problem here though...I am not doing it to SERVE Him.  This is a weird sort of splitting of hairs, maybe, but I feel like it is a bigger issue and one I am wrestling with right now. 

There are reasons for working:
To accomplish something we want done (self-serving)
To earn a reward (also self-serving)
To help someone (other-serving)
To be allowed to participate in something greater than our self (God serving us!)
The last one is tricky...I always saw my "work for the Lord" as a gift to Him...but I think underlying that thought was that I was "helping" Him.  What a foolish notion!!!  God - the same who created all the earth, set the mountains exactly the way HE wanted them. Made the bacteria that I cannot see with my eyes.  Knows the number of hair on my head and the stars in the sky.  Understands all unexplainable phenomena.  DOESN'T NEED MY HELP!  What is sad is that I didn't even realize that I had been thinking like this until I tried thinking about it in the way I believe God wants me to think about it.

Did God need Jonah to talk to the people of Nineveh?  Doubt it!  Did Jonah need God to send him to Nineveh to make some major corrections?  YUP!

Did God need Noah to build the ark?  NOPE.  Did Noah need to build the Ark to learn some mighty big lessons?  I think yes.

Did God need Moses to lead the people?  Ha!  NO WAY!  Did Moses need to learn to lead the people and did the people need to learn from Moses?  OH YEAH!

Did God need John the Baptist to baptize all those people?  No.  Were John the Baptist and the people rewarded and brought closer to God through doing that work?  Of course! 

I need to reread my Bible with this in mind to see how each person's work really granted them the closeness with the Lord and how they received abundant GRACE!

I believe God gifts us with work.  We just participate in what He is already doing.  First and always, our work Glorifies Him but then it helps grow us into the people who reflect Him.  I realize that the work I am doing is not for me to give to God, but a gift from God to me!  I get to see His glory through helping His people.  It is so amazing when I think about it this way.  It is no longer self-serving, but God serving me.  Wow!  No matter how hard I try to "earn Grace," I am adding to my debt because only more Grace is given.  When I serve the Lord, my most wonderful reward is the opportunity to be with Him in a real and alive way.  I get that through reading my Bible, through the messages from church, and from the stories of other believers, but the most enjoyable way is through working along with the Lord who uses my clumsy hands, my unskilled body, my unlearned ideas, and my inexperience and creates beauty.  He does make beautiful things out of the dust!

And what if I refuse the call to work?  Luke 19:40 shows me just how unneeded I am:  “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”