“a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume”
Matthew 26:7
Admittedly, I don’t own much of great value. No Picasso paintings are portrayed on my walls. The only thing from the Ming family is the empty fried rice box in the trash. The Italian in my wardrobe is courtesy of the Olive Garden stain on my favorite button up. So in a lot of ways I have a hard time connecting to this woman who brought something that quite possibly was a years worth of salary. Google informs me that the average median US salary is somewhere just north of $50,000.
Great day that’s a lot of cheddar to pour out in one place!
For some reason, I think the dad in me saw this passage in a new light. Most nights my hands find those of smaller than mind to hold while we whisper prayers into the night. Now granted this little precious pedal allows daddy to hold her hands while we pray. Her older brothers insist on not, but the reminder was the same for all three. The items of greatest value in my life are those that hold my hand back.
As father it was like the God tied an ACME anvil around my heart and dropped it off cliff in an attempt to crush the RoadRunner as I read those words again. I realized it was not about Picasso paintings, fast sports cars and even international apparel. It was about something that our hands hold that are most valuable to us. To me it is those three lives that share my DNA and my address.
I came face to face with the question: “am I willing to put them at the feet of Jesus?”.
I know those of you who are better believers than me this is a no brainer. But for the fellow strugglers like me take this road with me. This woman took what was of greatest value to her and poured it out on Jesus. What she held tightly to she had to let go of.
This seems to throw itself in the line of fire of my dad thinking. It is the belief that these are my kids to love and hold and squeeze and raise. My hands are the hands that will do all this. And this woman, who I may or not have been a mom, took something of such great cost and poured it out on Jesus. And that is where the car crash of my heart happens. You have to let them go.
Christ is asking me as a dad to lay my kids at his feet. What I hold with such value is the cost I have to pay as a dad. It is an act of surrender and submission. It is position of placing what is of such great value as the cost of my heart’s condition.
What is is really a question of is the same question asked of Abraham: “are you willing to hold nothing back from me even your kids?” God has placed three alabaster jars in my hands that are of incredible value. The only way they can be of the best use to him is to poured out into their purposes. They find that at the feet of Jesus.
So mom and dad, as difficult as it is, we must take our little jars of great worth and pay the cost of putting them at the feet of Jesus. It will cost us everything, but return a value that is world changing!
