Luke 20:27-21:4

Jesus is talking to His followers about people who make themselves look good while they are living another life behind everyone else’s backs. Then He looks up and sees a Widow giving everything she has. She becomes His next object lesson and I have to admit, these few verses give me major anxiety. 

The importance of the Widow is not the fact that she gave everything, but the fact that she gave everything because she recognized that she herself was not the source of her income. She didn’t rely on herself to provide for herself. 

For me it has always been easier to recognize that I am not my source when I am seriously lacking in funds. But as things get better and our bank account starts to fill back up, I tend to see myself as my own source again. And I know when that happens, once again, God asks me for everything (or at least it feels that way). Plus, I happen to be married to someone who truly believes that God is our provider and always wants to give to others way more than I do! Hence, my anxiety around this issue. Deep down, I still want to be in control and that comes from the idea somehow that I really am my own source of income. 

This truth doesn’t apply to only money though. I’ve been protective over my heart in so many other ways. I have felt that I am my own source for justice. I have believed that I am my own source for love.

It’s much easier to realize that we are not our own source for justice when justice seems nowhere to be found. When we feel like no one around us is showing us love and we just can’t feel it from anywhere it’s so much easier to realize that we are not the source of love either. But when we feel like there is something that we can do to leverage justice or love (or any other thing we feel we are the source of) and then we are asked to lay it down, asked to behave more like Christ? Can we surrender to the Source at that point? 

It’s not a matter of how much you have, but rather who you know your source to be. If you can’t give it all -  your source is still you. 

And I’m not here to beat anyone up about that because I believe it’s all a process of trusting God more each day. I’m just saying, let’s be honest. Let’s really just admit the truth. There are areas where we don’t trust God to come through. We don’t want to offer these things to God. We don’t know what He will do with them. It’s scary. It’s anxiety producing. 

Jesus was telling his followers about being aware of people who deceive by acting like they are one way when they are really another. Then He sees this Widow and He starts to honor her and lift her up. He says something (paraphrasing mine) to His disciples like this...

Beware of people who walk around acting like they have it all together and believing they are their own sources of love, justice, time, worthiness, money, etc. They think it all comes from themselves and they only give what they don’t need. They only give their sloppy seconds, the extra that falls off accidentally. Be like this Widow, who knows her source is God Himself and gives from that truth. She digs down deep to give of her love, because she knows that she is loved deeply by God. She fights for justice because she serves a God who is her source of justice. She is truly free because she truly trusts God. Be like her.