Honouring God

A few weeks ago, my husband and I spent our Sunday morning working hard in our village school garden. It’s a small plot of land, carefully laid out in little connecting circular flower beds in front of our village Primary School. We have to seize our moments for this job, so that we don’t bump into the school kids coming in or out of school, or block the space. There was no church service for us that week, and we worked hard, as well as chatting with villagers and their dogs or children as they walked past – to the village shop, the open countryside or the village pub.

Imagine my surprise when, sometime later, a good charismatic and godly friend expressed shock at the sheer thought of working on a school garden instead of being in church – or at least spending our time in prayer or Bible study - in the absence of a Sunday church service!

And then I found myself reading Matthew 15 and the verses quoted above. In this passage Jesus is expressing His anger at those ‘pious’ and law-abiding Jews who, when it came to supporting their elderly parents, brushed them off with an excuse that the money they could have given to their parents they had given, as their holy duty to God, in the collection plate.

God does care – He cares very much – about our financial giving. But God also cares very much about how we look after and provide for our families: our care for those who are elderly or sick; our care for those with broken marriages, and our care for the children of the broken marriages. God cares about the time we invest in our own marriage partners; our neighbours; our work-colleagues, and in our own enjoyment.

Sometimes I feel shocked to hear how much time and effort some godly people spend serving the church throughout their week: this club, that meeting, this activity … becoming too busy just to ‘be’.  And, dare I say it, I sometimes meet good Christian people who are so full of all their serving in church that they seem to have even lost sight of who they really are.

God wants us to be whole people who live out love in action in our personal lives - with those in need, and with neighbours, friends, family.  It’s as we live that we live out Jesus and His life in us.