The Gravitational Pull of Mercy

The concept of God accepting our menial tasks as worship fired me up for work this week. Normally, when my work isn’t fun, it’s due to volume and/or deadlines. This week brought several emotional tests, difficult situations, seemingly tens of times where I would have to claim God’s promise of wisdom from James 1. The concept, though, has still had me excited to serve God in my everyday life.
But tonight I realized the hidden edge, the convicting notion in the idea that all we do is worship: God receives our sins as offerings of worship. The putrid, empty defiance we stack throughout our day are placed on our daily alter with our good works and better intentions. The garbage smell wafts with what we hope will be a sweet aroma. And it’s not a scale, where (like the unbelieving religious) we hope the beautiful outweighs the ugly.
If God held Cain in contempt for his best fruit, imagine how hurt he is by our sin. I would even dare to say it stands worse than the maimed sheep referenced in Malachi. After the extent of Christ’s sacrifice, we can’t give up pet peeve A and besetting sin B?
I’m preaching at myself.
I really struggled to take communion last night. The ushers gave us cards to write praise, to acknowledge fears & stumbling blocks, and/or to confess sins. I put something for each but found more sins than I wanted to write. I wrestled with God. And lost.
I confessed my past and promised to do better. I tried to make deals, to make room for my best intentions not being fulfilled from that point forward. There was no brokenness, like I have felt at other times during very vulnerable moments (when I needed something from God). But I would at least work on several of the big ones.
Today alone, I think, I have committed all of the top “big ones” from my mental list. The attitudes, motives, and actions I wanted to avoid all found me. Or as we learned in the James reading last week. I found them. As I got ready to blog today, reflecting back on a spiritually miserable day, I couldn’t look up with my prayers of confession. I knew better. I willingly brought this stench to the altar of my day. I thanked the Holy Spirit for convicting me and apologized profusely for not heeding the whispers I request in the morning.
I was broken. At least I think so.
And I wonder what God does with that. He doesn’t see my sin and my guilt through the filter of Christ, but somewhere he’s got to be inventorying the offerings.
He does this every day with me in varying degrees. As my lawyer, Jesus has defense cases hourly. Multiply that times the others like me, and I wonder why he even bothers. Why, knowing in advance, would he plan a heaven for people who don’t deserve it?
That’s all pious sounding, praise chorus material. It’s true. But how real is it in my life?
I think that’s why I find it hard to be physically open singing in front of my church chair. I have a hard time lifting my spirit toward heaven when I’ve been lifting feces all week. As I reflect on the past 6-10 years of my spiritual journey (if it’s worthy of even that title), I find that the times I’ve privately approached Heaven that way were connected to remorse over recent sin or begging for God’s direction, protection, and/or provision.
In that way, I guess, I connect to David. Like the psalmist, my sin ironically drives me toward him and spiritual closeness.
I don’t find it coincidence that our Imprints study guides directed us to the story of Simon and the sinner woman—and to the question of “who loves me more: the person forgiven little or the one forgiven much?” My lot is with the latter; and yet . . . I continue to offer gifts that are empty and dirty and wrong.
But tomorrow is another day. I start with a clean slate, because his mercies are new every morning. And I have the lessons of today to guide my steps.