The Empty Hands Of Faith

I watched parts of the Gospel Music Awards last night, in between the Pistons basketball game and the Monday Night Football Game. There were parts of the GMA that I liked and at other times some of me sat with my arms crossed in a bit of a critical huff. All the money and effort that gets poured out makes my cynical side wonder who is pulling the strings in all of this, but that is a whole other discussion. I watched some of the bands perform songs and such. (Mercy Me won Artists of the year, which was fine with me, I can only imagine that I’d like them, if I knew them [pun intended])
One act that grabbed my imagination was Jars Of Clay. They have a great line in one of their song that goes something like “the only thing I bring is the empty hands of faith.”
That stirred in my soul.
We just have seen another Christmas whirl past in a cosmic rush. Like my grandfather used to say every year after all the gifts were opened, with the wrapping paper still cast about all over the floor, “Well another one come and gone!”
So much of our attention during December is spent on getting people the right gift at the right price. Sometimes this is because we are exchanging gifts, other times it is just to be nice or share in some common “Christmas spirit.” It’s alright to get others gifts because we know that in our natural selves it is primming the pump to get something nice in return. A gift exchange.
So many want a gift exchange with God. I give God something and that will cause a response from him toward me. So we climb toward the Almighty with our gifts wrapped in the prettiest of bows and the finest of paper and lay them at his feet, batting our eyes with an anticipated return gift just waiting for our consumption.
Cold hard reality check: We have nothing that God needs. That is a brutal reality. We are empty handed, leverage-less beggars, pleading in desperation with nothing to offer Him. There is no gift exchange. There is the empty hands of faith reaching with desperation toward the only hope or there is nothing. Throw down your barter and clear your hands of the chains of employment. It is only with the empty hands of faith can you receive the gifts the Father has for you; Childhood. Adoption. Love. Mercy. Hope. Life. Forgiveness.
That is far from an empty promise or lousy gift. Peace!