Keeping Scores

As silly as it sounds, our human nature is to keep scores with God. Some people more than others but on general terms sadly we initiate every now and then a merely stupid competition with God in which we pretend to win somehow!

This morning it was so sadly obvious for me, that this is what I will meditate on throughout the whole day. Using Bethlehem's Church bible reading plan, I was pointed to go through the story of Ananias and Sapphira this morning. Although the story teaches us about lying to God and falsely pretending to be something that you are not... take a second to think about this. Why would Ananias and Sapphira go ahead and lie? The times I have done the same at some minor or mayor level is because I would think to myself... hey look what you are doing for the "G" man!... you are definitely wining some points here... good for you! Thus like myself, I think they both wanted to score some points in any way possible.

And as I have done it I can imagine Ananias seeing everybody in the spirit of commonwealth: this man selling his home and giving everything to the church, this other lady giving probably all the money she had saved, a young man giving the only two lambs he had, and he said to himself and his wife... hey! we are behind on this! everybody is wining some good G-Points... where are ours? And of course when things start with the wrong motivation they are usually executed with the wrong actions, so in the process of being "smart" they imagined they could win mayor points doing what they did and at the same time not be stupid enough to "lose" everything, keeping quietly something for just in case!

So yes, we keep scores... but listen, it is no mystery... we do it with our wives, if we have been "very good" for the past few days, we say to ourselves, I have won some points, I have a considerable amount of love money at the love bank... I will rest now and cash in on the interest!... and that's when we start to take advantage of the "points earned" (sorry Dear!)

But returning to keeping scores with God, what happens when our lives are a mess? What if right now because of negligence and laziness, our spiritual garden is in a total mess? Even in those occasions we keep scores when we get up and say, "I should clean this so I can be able to walk through it and contemplate it's beauty and imagine God's face when He sees it!" I can't imagine a worse reason to clean up your life... this is pure arrogance. But of course there is also the "I should clean this so others may see it's beauty" attitude where also the whole point of it is letting others see the "points you are winning" with God.

O Lord, our hearts are so deceitful! Please let us see this sinful stain on our hands before we use them on your behalf... please let us not think that what we do is somehow important, for you need no help from us sinners. You are pleased and moved by your precious heart to make us participate in your Holy plan, but we are only driven by Your Spirit and with Your strength.

     May this lesson my heart has received be of good use to you, my brothers,

     Eric Rivier