“What we are is God’s gift to us,
What we make of ourselves is our gift to God.”
I’ve always loved this saying. Although, it’s recently been pointed out to me how potentially unbiblical and misleading it is.
Is “what we are” really God’s gift to us?
NO: Your genetic baggage, infirmities, diseases, handicaps, family dysfunction, inherent sinfullness, predispositions, environment, are part of a screwed up world. The person born with AIDS, abusive parents, a cleft pallette, living in poverty, raised by a single parent, cannot thank God for “what they are.”
YES: Not just your talents and latent potential, but even your adversities and shortcomings are a “gift” from God to help you grow, to work harder, to strive to overcome your “lot in life.” The person born with a disease, physical handicap, or social disadvantage has a chance to become something that a person born into better circumstances could never become.
Is “what we make of ourselves” really a gift from us to God?
NO: God doesn’t need anything from us; besides, we can only make of ourselves what God permits, and to think we can ever make ourselves “better'” more accepted, or more righteous in his eyes is to fail to recognize our utter depravity and helplessness. The person striving to make themselves something before God can get trapped into performance-orientation, pride, self-righteousness, helplessly striving to curry God’s favor.
YES: You have a free will; God’s blessed you with the ability to make something of your life and to transform your circumstances into something God-honoring. The person born into difficulty and dire straights is responsible to not wallow in it, but to strive make themselves a better person whom which they can offer to God.
Hair-splitting? Possibly. But this saying inspires me. I was not born into the best circumstances. Better than many, for sure. But there’s a few significant genetic, socio-economic, familial factors that nearly destroyed me. I thank God for those things and want to try hard to make my life a gift to him. Am I so wrong?
No, I don’t think you are.
For the first part, are all those “no” traits really what defines you as a person? You may have to deal with them, yes, but they are not you and will disappear when we are in heaven. They are not who we are, any more than a broken leg is. The gift is what abides beyond that: who we are, and the unique person that God created in us.
For the second, here:
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Romans 12:1,2.
I’m not sure that we are helpless under our depravity either. There’s a difference between seeing sanctification as works-righteousness, and that. That ignores the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives:
“For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.
That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you…Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do…
…So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.”
Romans 8:7-9a, 12, 15.
The Holy Spirit does many things for us, part of which is help us to overcome our sinful nature, and begin the long process of sanctification. I agree with the “no” in that too much of a focus on our efforts in doing so leads to pride and works righteousness, but the opposite error is to believe that it’s impossible to do so, or that doing so will always cause that kind of harm. Sanctification is something we only do in part, and the Spirit also slowly changes us once we step out in faith to do so. I also think that it can be hard to do, and we seem helpless. But it’s not impossible for us to make any effort.
So we can offer up what we do in this life to God as worship, if we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit. In a way, all we do is give Him his due, but I think that He knows how weak and frail we are, and we become like the widow with the two mites-our due is also gift, and sacrifice.
I’d then fall on the side of Yes. Of course, Yes can seem entirely insensitive when a person is struggling with depression, and a lot of pithy aphorisms make a person want to punch the quoter in the shirt rather than lift them up. But there is truth to it.
Slogans are always half right and half wrong. 😉