A Beautiful Offering: Returning God's Love with Your Life - Softcover

Thomas, Angela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0785288260 ISBN 13: 9780785288268

Publisher: Thomas Nelson, 2006

Synopsis

For many years Angela Thomas thought of the Beatitudes as a list of "Gotta Be's," as in: Gotta be meek. Gotta be merciful. And when she compared her life to the standard they set, she always felt that she came up short. But through God's great mercy, she has come to see this passage instead as a roster of "When You Are's." When you are meek, there is a spiritual inheritance. When you are merciful, you will be shown mercy.

This shift in thinking has led Thomas to understand that God does not require perfection, but rather our gracious obedience. In His eyes, our lives-complete with mistakes, blemishes, and imperfections-are A Beautiful Offering.

About this title

About the Author:

Angela Thomas is an ordinary woman and mom, with an extraordinary passion for God. She's been honored to walk alongside women of all ages and walks of life through her books and speaking engagements. Angela received her Master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. For more information on Angela, visit: www.angelathomas.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One
BROKEN

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

When I was a little girl in North Carolina dreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I chose the most radical, adventurous, outside-my-box, scare-my-parents-silly thing I could think of. My mom was a nurse and my dad sold produce. I was their firstborn, and I decided that I wanted to be an astronaut. Of course no one took me seriously for a while, which made me all the more determined.

Folks would come over for dinner and I'd hear them talking to my parents. Actually, I was eavesdropping. I'd lurk around the grown-ups, careful not to draw too much attention to myself, silently gathering information. For some reason, I thought that I belonged in their conversation more than I belonged outside on the swing set. I'd overhear one of my parents say, "Angela wants to be an astronaut," and then I'd watch as the guest would look over at me, amazed. I assumed they were thinking, That squirrelly little four-eyed kid? She seems kind of nerdy, but she must have spunk. She's got big dreams. I'd puff up on the inside, thinking to myself, One of these days you are going to watch me land on the moon.

I kept talking about being an astronaut and reading books on NASA and lunar landings. In the third grade, I sat riveted to watch all the Apollo coverage on our grainy black-and-white television. While the other girls were doing book reports on cats or manners, I always chose topics such as space and moon rocks and exploration. I would stir up a glass of Tang for breakfast and think about what it would be like to drink it through a straw while floating upside down in a space suit. We built model rockets at school once, and I was thrilled to get out of that stupid sewing module and into my life's calling. I knew I'd eventually prove to all the naysayers that I was serious. I didn't know you needed to be a genius to be an astronaut; I though you just had to want to. And if it was about "want to," then I had it.

One Christmas I asked for and received a telescope so that I could keep an eye on things and chart my course through the stars. Never mind that it was the dinkiest little tabletop telescope ever, with three wobbly legs. I took it outside at dusk and stared at the moon. Soon I had convinced all the neighborhood kids that I could see the United States flag Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had planted on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. I was so sure that I even convinced myself I could see it. I can still remember blurry images of red, white and blue and my big-shot attitude. "If you were astronaut material, you'd be able to see the flag," I'd argue.

I think that this very moment is the first time I am consciously realizing that I probably did not actually see the Stars and Stripes from my front yard. This is a hard revelation. But how could you see a flag on the moon with a couple of scratched-up lenses inside a white plastic tube? I guess you can't. How embarrassing. I haven't thought about this in forever, and its kind of painful to realize I've believed my own hype all these years. A grand imagination dies a bitter, slow death, you know.

I bet you've already guessed where this story is going. One day some know-it-all said, "You can't be an astronaut. Astronauts need perfect vision. Astronauts can't wear glasses when you blast off in a rocket. They don't stay on in zero gravity." I'd never heard of such a thing. Then I checked around, and sure enough, back then, it was true. There were no four-eyed astronauts.

How could my best idea for an awe-inspiring, adventurous life be instantly gone? What was I going to do? The big dream inside this skinny girl was shattered. That dream had made me important. Everybody thought I had courage. How was I going to be somebody with no wild, over-the-top career to aspire to?

It was a very difficult day when my astronaut dream broke.

The Jesus Girl

Fast-forward about ten years, and that same nerdy girl meets Jesus in college. Thankfully there were no vision requirements except spiritual eyes to see. Maybe for the first time since the astronaut dream died, I had a reason to live. But I was still me, and I brought my energetic, wait-till-you-see-what-I-can-do-for-Jesus attitude to our relationship.

I thought it would work out great. Jesus needed me to show everybody how to be a model, happy Christian, and I needed something to do with my life, since I wouldn't be going to the moon.

I really fell in love with God and jumped into my new reason to live with both of my busy feet. It's like I went from place to place, begging anybody to show me what to do. I was a wild woman. Reading the Bible, doing two or three studies at a time. Praying for hours. Going to church every day I could find one open. Asking anyone who stood still long enough, "If you died tonight, do you know where you'd spend eternity?" I was a quick learner. Just give me the instructions, tell me what the rules are, then stand back and watch. I was going to be the best little Christian girl Jesus ever had.

And you know that whole thing kind of worked for a while. I am predisposed toward happy. I like happy people, and I like to make people happy. So my being happy for Jesus was a good fit. It gave me energy. It propelled me through seminary and the first years of my ministry. It was almost as if nothing could hurt me in those days. I'm sure I was oblivious to the hurt I caused with my happy pride about my happy life, but I was just zinging along, from campfire to campfire, singing.

I'll shout it from the mountaintops (Praise God!),
I want my world to know,
the Lord of Love,
has come to me,
I want to pass it on.

Well I kept shouting from the mountaintops, wondering why everyone couldn't just find a spark, get a fire going, pass it on, and we'd all snuggle up together beside the warm glowing.

I had wanted the world to know about Jesus and the happy life they could have in Him. What I didn't realize was that life out there in the real world was eventually going to roll in and teach me a thing or two about happy. Make that roll right over on top of me. No, more like put me under an asphalt paver and squish me flat like a bug, you know, where the guts are everywhere and you can't even tell what it used to be? Yep, that's about how it was somewhere around my early thirties.

I love that God gave me a happy-camper life for a while. Some of my best memories were made over s'mores or passing LifeSavers around a room with a toothpick between your teeth. The best stuff happened at a cabin in the woods, or at a sunrise service on the beach, or while tubing down a river with a bunch of crazy friends. The spiritual foundation that God built in those years is priceless to me now.

But when you're running along being the happy-camper Christian girl and you begin to feel your life come apart, it catches you by surprise. Maybe as the happy Jesus girl, I had all the right motives and exactly the right approach for those years, but I was blissfully ignorant about the pain and disappointment that can come to each of us. Before I really knew what was happening, parts of my life began to crack and little pieces started to break off and smash flat. Back then I did the only thing I knew to do: I sang louder and prayed harder and went to more Bible stuff. And that seemed to be the answer until I began to come apart in big chunks I was singing as loud as I could and the mountaintop was leveled anyway.

It was an even more difficult day when my perfect-Jesus-girl dream broke.

When a Person Breaks

When life is overwhelming and the burdens become more than one human being can bear . . .When your circumstances are unrelenting, or the consequences that have come to you heap higher and higher . . .When tragedy sneaks into your life to ambush you like a stalker, or the world bangs down the door and says, "Let me teach you a few lessons" . . .When there is just too much and you almost can't breathe . . .then people break. Hearts break and the will is broken and dreams shatter and the spirit is crushed.

For some reason I had believed there would be a progression. I'd bring my strengths to Jesus, He'd add more strength, then I'd just get better and better. I used to think that by now I'd probably be a spiritual giant. I guess I thought that after I'd spent most of my life knowing Jesus, I'd outgrow my humanity. I'd outrun the world. I'd rise above and never stumble. I don't' know where all these dumb ideas came from, but I was just wrong and strong-willed and insensitive. Did I say the whole sing-louder-to-drown-out-the-heartache thing was dumb? 'Cause if I didn't, it was.

Brokenness comes to us for so many different reasons. Sometimes it's the way the world comes up to greet us. Sometimes it's the consequences of our sin. Sometimes it's the result of a lifetime of poor choices. And then sometimes we can't even untangle the mess to give it a name. Christians break for all the same reasons anybody breaks, because they are human and fragile and prone to wander.

I have friends who have been broken by sickness, the death of a child or a spouse, bankruptcy, abuse, rape, addictions, abortion, and on and on. They are Christians who've been crushed in one way or another by tragedy or choices or sin. You know sometimes it starts small and then gets bigger. That's how brokenness came to me. I have been broken by circumstances and choices and then, finally, divorce.

Sometimes we have to use words to describe ourselves that were never meant to be in anyone's vocabulary. We suddenly have words attached to our lives such as cancer, divorce, rape, or widow. Sometimes we look around us and know that it's not how we dreamed it, but here it is, and it's all in a million pieces.

It seems like almost every strong believer I know has been broken or remains in broken places. A pastor said to me the other day, "Angela, I don't really trust anyone in ministry who's never been broken." His words were meant as grace to me, and they could not have been more soothing. He gets it. None of us ever went looking for brokenness, but it came to find us anyway, with all its intense lessons on pain and heartache and suffering.

Maybe you've never known anything so painful that it emptied your spirit. Or maybe it seems like you've lived your whole life in pain. Either way, the reality is that it's coming. One way or another, brokenness comes to us all. I'd kind of thought I could skip past it if I kept singing. But Jesus never preached the insulated gospel. That was my own misinterpretation of Him.

Did you ever think the same kinds of things I did? Did you ever believe that being a Christian meant eventually overcoming weakness or reaching a pinnacle of near-perfection on this earth? We can become more mature as believers. We can be made complete for the purposes of Christ on this earth. But until heaven, we cannot escape our humanity and the frailties that come with it. Did you ever think that if you subscribed to a certain set of behaviors, you'd be protected from the effects of living in a fallen world? I don't' know if I consciously ever said those things, but as I look back, those kinds of ideas seemed to fuel my actions and attitudes.

The broken person can pick up one of the little pieces lying around, but can't find another one to match. It becomes obvious that this life isn't going to be put back together like a puzzle. Somebody is going to have to start over. But the person who is broken doesn't have the will anymore. The broken person is emptied of desire and dreams and courage. When life breaks and the pieces are crushed, then the spirit of that person becomes desperate and poor.

Poor in Spirit

During all those happy-camper years, I had read about the poor in spirit, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out who in the world Jesus was talking about - certainly not anyone who knew Him as Savior. And then one day it was me. I knew Him as my Savior and Lord, yet there I was - divorced, broken, and mentally, emotionally, and spiritually flattened. I realized that I needed to hear whatever He had to say about being poor in spirit.
When Jesus climbed the hillside one afternoon to give His followers living instructions, He knew they were a bunch of people just like me and you. Maybe they had been singing and rousing chorus of "Pass It On" around a bonfire, squeezed one another's hand, and with a tear of joy, whispered to their neighbor, "God loves you." Maybe some of the more extroverted followers had shimmied up a tree and led a pep rally for Jesus. All together now.

I am a C.
I am a C-H.
I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N.
And I have C-H-R-I-S-T
In my H-E-A-R-T
And I will L-I-V-E, E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y.

Louder and louder their voices rose. Singing and chanting and laughing and loving one another and their Lord. I would have totally loved it.

Jesus had been healing the sick and casting out demons. People had heard about Him and had come from as far away as Syria to have their loved ones healed. There were crowds from Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea and from all across the Jordan region. These people were in the presence of the Son of God. Pain was fleeing. Demons were running. The crippled were walking. If there ever had been a reason to sing and shout and dance over Jesus' power and mercy, this had to be the best.

Build bigger bonfires. Bring in more guitars. Sing louder. Throw the stick of your sin into the fire. Hold hands and raise them to the sky. Jesus is Lord. He is Love. He is a Healer. He is more than amazing.

The crowd just kept building, and I am imagining that they were a bunch of happy campers with all this healing and good news going on. These people had heard about the Son of God, just seen the proof of His power with their own eyes, and now Jesus was going to teach them about the possibility of living a life that would be pleasing to God.

Finally, the Savior was among them, and He was going to speak to them from a hillside so that they could see Him. Maybe Jesus had to get the disciples to settle down the newly healed in the back who had just divided their section into three parts and were singing in rounds about "bubblin' over." Maybe they had to tell the demon un-possessed to hang on a minute, that testimonial time was slated for a little later in the day. Maybe the disciples kept saying to the people, "We know you're excited, but simmer down - Jesus has something to say to us." Maybe in the presence of these miracles, even the brokenhearted forgot about their pain for a while and leaned in a little closer to hear what this Man had to say.

And then the Reason for all the celebration stood and turned to this exuberant crowd and said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Huh?" one celebrant leans over and whispers to the next. "What did He just say? I've still got 'Kum Ba Ya' going round in my head, and I'm not sure I heard him right."

"He said, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'"

"Oh. Wonder why He said that. Look at us. We're all so happy. There is a party going on everywhere this Man goes. I'll probably be happy for the rest of my life. My pain ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0785288260
• ISBN 13: 9780785288268
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 215