My sister and I were chatting about the last months of our parent's lives and I said how amazing she was in packing up their house alone and coping with the whole heartbreaking ordeal. Her response stayed with me because it echoes my own. She said that despite doing all she could, it was sadly not enough.
How often that nagging fear clings to my heart. I try to push it aside but residues of it's sickly presence remain to haunt me when I am at my lowest. What I am, what I have and what I give is not enough.
Two beautiful stories remind me of others who gave what was not enough and they teach me a wonderful lesson. The poor widow who gave a couple of cents in Mark 12:44-45 and the little boy who gave his packed lunch to feed thousands of hungry people. In both cases the gifts were ridiculously inadequate in the looming presence of the need but that didn't stop or even seem to embarrass the givers. They gave what they had in the full awareness that it was not enough.
When you think of the little boy and the old lady there is a quality of their giving that stands out. They gave what they had to God. Their eyes were not firstly on the needs or expectations of the people around them because otherwise they would have cringed.
They gazed on God and were filled with the desire to give Him all they had.
What He did with their gift was not their concern.
When I give what I have to people, it is never enough. Nothing a man can do will fill the emptiness in another human's soul. Men, always seeking and always grabbing, will always be unfulfilled by my inadequate attempts at giving. It must be so, in order for us to find the only One who is enough: Jesus Christ.
So when I give what I have to God first and then to you, my heart is steadfast. I know the inadequacy of my gift but I focus on the faithfulness of Him who is able to use the most feeble things of this world to reveal the Lordship of Jesus.