Have you ever worn your clothes backwards for a laugh? I have, and I could hardly believe how hard it was to perform the simplest tasks such as eating or going to the bathroom! Well, if we get something backwards in our thinking, that, too, can make even the most elementary functions seem difficult.

Recently I was telling my son Benjamin what the Lord was speaking to my heart from Exodus 25, where He had instructed Moses to receive an offering from those men whose hearts prompted them to give. First, I was struck by the fact that God didn't demand the offering; that's what made it an offering in the first place! They gave because they wanted to build a place for God to dwell near them.

I began to ponder what kind of offering God would consider acceptable today, and it hit me! Romans 12:1 says, 'Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.' The reason this familiar verse was suddenly so exciting to me was this: Tracy and I had been praying about taking a mission trip to South Africa, and these selections from the Old and New Testaments combined to let me know that if my heart was prompting me to give an offering, and the acceptable, pleasing offering to God was ME, then I really didn't need a loud voice from heaven to tell me 'yea' or 'nay'!

That's when our conversation took a turn. Ben told me about a friend of his who points out we seldom pray about whether or not to go to a movie, buy a certain outfit, eat at a restaurant, etc. But when it comes to giving a large offering financially for God's work or actually going on a mission trip, we spend hours seeking God first to see if that's what He wants us to do!

What makes this backwards? We already know that offering our lives to Him is pleasing to Him! We already know that He told us to go! His passion is people, so His heartbeat is redeeming them! What if God wants us to pray less about giving and going and just do what our hearts prompt us to do? What if He wants us to pray more about how being truly set apart for His use will affect everyday decisions?

We say we'll give everything to Him, but what if He begins to "meddle"? What if He starts talking to us about what we eat? Watch? Read? Spend? Drive? Wear? Who we befriend? Not so we'll have a list of rules, but so we'll be effective. Maybe that will be one more step towards becoming the glorious bride Jesus is coming back for--one who has her wedding gown on straight, perhaps having some of the wrinkles ironed out and some spots removed, finding her passion in pleasing her Groom!

c 2005 B. Spencer