"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1)

 

Greetings Beloved:

 

Today is Ash Wednesday the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period to observe the spiritual disciplines and to walk closer with God. 

 

Today’s devotion, taken from the great Christian theologian Howard Thurman, reminds us of the profound significance of making our lives an offering to God.  Thurman makes the case that we should re-dedicate our lives to God on a regular basis because doing so is an excellent way to counteract life’s many difficulties, disappointments and anxieties.

 

Life, an Offering to God

By Howard Thurman

 

Many, many years ago, a Hindu poet wrote:

 

Love not the world nor yet forsake

Its gifts in fear and hate.

Thy life to God an offering make

And to him dedicate.

 

We are all of us involved in life in its varied aspects and responsibilities.  The daily routine carries its own toll of energies and processes.  The struggle for bread and shelter continues to the very end to beat at our lives and our very spirits with an insistence that cannot be ignored.

 

For many there are additional cares that go beyond the demands of our own personal survival and encompass the tender threads of the lives of others whom we are bound by ties of blood and birth.

 

Beyond all this, there are areas of the common life which we must do our part in order that the very fabric of society may be maintained against collapse and disintegration.  There are dreams hopes and yearnings which possess our lives, calling us away form the usual round and the common tasks.

 

In the midst of all these pressures and many more, life for us becomes entangled or again and again bogs down.  There comes a moment when we are in utter revolt – something deep within us become tired, weary, exhausted and finally, outraged.

 

What we long for in deep anxiety is some haven, some place of retreat, some time of quiet where our bruised and shredded spirits may find healing and restoration.  One form that this anxiety takes is to hate life and to fear tomorrow.  For such the ancient poet speaks a timely word.

 

All such experiences are a part of our experience and must be regarded as life’s gifts.  Whatever may be the uniqueness of a man’s experience, he must remember that nothing that is happening to him is separated from that which is common to man.  The answer to all of this reaction of deep anxiety and anguish is, says the poet: “Thy life to God an offering make, and to Him dedicate.” And the meaning of this?

 

If I make of my life an offering and a dedication to God, then this dedication will include all of my entanglements and involvements. There follows, then, a radical change over my entire landscape and miraculously I am free at my center.  It is for this reason that it is well, again and again, to re-establish my dedication, to make repeatedly an offering of my life.  I must keep my dedication up to date with my experiencing.

 

Peace and Blessings,

Pastor Kip Banks

 

East Washington Heights Baptist Church