FAY ROWE

When I was a child I often heard in church, "God is no man's debtor."

There's a lot in the Bible to support that statement: the whole sowing and reaping concept found in Corinthians; the "give to the the poor and God will repay" concept found in Proverbs; the "put first the kingdom" teaching in Matthew, to name several.

When you think about it, many of the Old Covenant Laws had to do with repaying what was taken from someone; hence, "an eye for an eye" was required.That wasn't exactly a "win-win" situation, but maybe whoever caused the loss of an eye needed to know the immensity sin he had committed. As I wrote in What's in A Name, the Old Testament is all about the destructive nature of sin while the New Testament is about the life-giving power of grace brought through Jesus. Grace and life bring wholeness.

In fact, the word "peace" in the Bible means wholeness. When Jewish folk say "Shalom" they are asking, "How is your peace?" In other words, "Are you whole? Is there something missing that needs replacing?" It just makes sense that it is in God's nature to give back, perhaps in abundance, what is given to him or given to others in his name.

I'm convinced it's true, even when what you give is time

My husband and I were chatting last night about when he was in a doctoral program in Texas years ago. When he brought home his first stack of readings we both were scared! And I was even more terrified for him when I found out it was for one week! When Sunday came, Glenn looked at the box of readings and was sorely tempted to stay home and read. But he had already made a quality decision that he would go to church every Sunday morning. He felt that without that one quality decision, he would have to make the same decision every week, and might spend years attending church only sporadically.

He held to it, and I don't recall any Sunday when I sat in church without Glenn.

Last night during our chat I remembered that, in spite of the fact that at one point in the process he was way behind everyone in his cohort, he ended up finishing before them all. And even before several of those in the group ahead of his.

Last night was the first time we connected the early completion of the dissertation to his commitment to take time away from the work to attend church with the family.

Not necessarily connected?

Maybe not. But I doubt it, perhaps because I like to let the Bible explain my experience (not the other way around) and because God really is no man's debtor.

I don't think it's in his nature. He's a giver.