I Am Embarrassed To Give It To Anybody

It is in a drawer.

You made it, and it came out roughly the way things come out when you are still learning, and there was a moment when you thought of who it might be for. And then you looked at the part that went wrong, and you imagined them looking at that same part, and you put it in the drawer.

And it has been in there a while now. Long enough that giving it would need explaining, which is another reason not to.

Here is what is actually stopping you, and it is worth naming precisely, because it is not modesty.

You are afraid that handing it over is a claim. That giving somebody a thing you made says: I think this is good, I think this is worth your shelf, I am presenting myself as somebody who makes things. And then the flaws in it become an argument against a claim you never wanted to make.

So you keep it in the drawer, where it does not have to represent you.

I want to take the claim out of it. Because giving somebody something you made is not a claim about your ability. It is a much older and much smaller thing than that, and the flaws travel with it and always have.

She of her want did cast in all that she had

There is a moment where Jesus watches people putting money into the treasury, and what He says about it turns the whole measurement upside down.

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark 12:44, King James Version)

She of her want did cast in all that she had.

The other gifts that day were larger. That is stated plainly and not disputed. If you had been standing there ranking the gifts by what they were worth, hers would have been last, and everybody watching would have agreed.

And He measures it completely differently. He is not looking at the size of the thing that landed. He is looking at what it cost the person who let go of it.

That is the measure being used, and it is not a kind allowance made for people with less. It is presented as the true accounting, the one that was correct all along while everybody else was counting wrong.

You are handing over something measured by what it cost you, and its size has never once been what heaven was looking at. Mark 12:44 declines to rank the gifts by their value and ranks them by what leaving went out of the giver, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a real measure rather than a consolation.

The flaws travel with it and that is right

Here is the second thing, and it took me a long time to believe it.

The wrong bit is not a problem to be apologized for. It is the part that proves a person made it.

A thing without a fault in it was made by a machine, and everybody knows what those look like and nobody keeps one for sentimental reasons. The mark of a hand is exactly the place where the hand did not manage it. That is not a defect in the gift, that is the gift being identifiably from you and not from a shop.

And the person receiving it knows that. Whatever they say or do not say, they are not going to examine the join. They are going to hold a thing that a person they know made with their hands and gave to them, and the crooked part will be part of the evidence that this happened.

You have been imagining a recipient who inspects. Nobody has ever done that.

You are able to hand over the fault along with the thing, and it has never once been the part that needed hiding. The written word puts the value in the cost to the giver rather than in the quality of the gift, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets somebody stop apologizing for their own hands.

Give it to one person this week

So here is the assignment and it is the last one on this site.

Give one thing you made to one person this week.

Take it out of the drawer. Do not fix it first. Do not explain what went wrong when you hand it over, and do not open with the apology you have already got half written, which begins it is not very good but.

Just give it to them.

And I want to say the next part plainly, because it is the part that will actually happen. They might not react much. They might say thanks and put it down and carry on with the conversation. That is not a verdict on the thing and it is not a verdict on you. People are not good at receiving and most of them are thinking about what to say.

The giving is the whole of the assignment. The reaction is not part of it and is not owed to you.

Mark 12:44 measures the gift by what it cost the giver and says nothing at all about how it was received, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody lets go of a thing they made.

You are able to let something imperfect leave your hands, and the response at the other end has never once been what made it worth giving. Mark 12:44 puts the whole account in what the giver let go of, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a person steady in the second after they hand it over.