Every morning, my daughter, Molly, asks me for a cup of milk. Sometimes I think back to the day before and remember her acute threenagery. Teeth brushing temper tantrums, the insistence that picking up the My Little Ponies littered over every inch of our cheerio-encrusted carpet is an excruciating form of injustice, screaming at her 1-year-old brother for having the audacity of handling and throwing her Barbies with impunity, and her utter refusal to put anything green and leafy within a two-foot radius of her mouth. I recall this behavior as I hand her a cup of milk in her My Little Pony cup, heated to just the right temperature (warm, not hot) and give her a kiss on top of her silky, brown hair—it smells just like her mom’s.
What I love about Molly is that she doesn’t let a sense of worth interfere with how she lives. She expects and knows she will get a cup of milk, not because she has earned it. In fact, she has behaved in a way that would restrict a gift if I was in the business calculating her behavior on a system of points. I give her a cup of milk not because of what she has done, but because of who she is.
May we see that God is not in the business of points. May we understand that like the centurion, our unworthiness does not inhibit our ability “to speak the word,” asking God for a warm (not hot) cup of milk. Our gifts from God are not bestowed within a system of merit, but within our inescapable identity as a child of God—making us of infinite worth. May our striving to earn God cease so that our warring for approval would transform into a fertile landscape of peace and contentment.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Isaiah 2:1–5
Matthew 8:5–11
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