Yesterday, I took a look at Mark’s gospel. Today, I want to sidestep into Matthew.
A couple of times in posts this Lent, I’ve been honest about running on empty. About turning up to prayer and being carried by the words of others because I’ve got nothing left. About sitting in the quiet on my own and finding that the tank is still empty.
And sometimes, that’s ok. Sometimes life is full, and God meets us in that. But this hasn’t been a one-off. This has become something of a pattern.
I give 100% to the people around me. Time, energy, listening, cooking, showing up, serving… I am very good at doing. Very good at making sure other people are ok. Not so good at receiving. Not so good at stopping. Not so good at making space.
Just recently, after I’d finished serving, someone came to talk to me. And somewhere in that conversation, she said: “You’re very good at doing, at making sure everyone else is looked after. But I’ve watched you… you’re not very good at taking.”
It wasn’t said harshly. It didn’t need to be. Because it wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like that. In fact, recently it feels like this theme has been echoing around me. In conversations. In books. In songs. The same gentle nudge, again and again. Like Someone is trying to get my attention.
Yesterday, I wrote about how God doesn’t leave things that aren’t good. How He challenges, not to condemn, but from a place of love. I wonder if this is one of those moments.
Because in Matthew’s gospel, in Holy Week, Jesus speaks some hard truths. He challenges people who are doing all the right things, saying all the right words, living lives that look full of faith from the outside.
And usually, when I read passages like that, I ask: Am I being fake? Am I getting this wrong? But that’s not the question that’s been sitting with me.
Instead, it’s this: What am I giving God?
Because the truth is, right now, I’m giving my first to everyone else; my first energy, my first attention, my first care.
And then I come to God… with whatever is left. Not because I want to. Not because I ever decided that’s how it should be. But because, slowly and quietly, that’s what my life has become.
And the thing is, it doesn’t work. Because when God gets my leftovers, I end up with nothing left at all. I keep pouring out… and wondering why I feel empty.
Maybe the invitation here isn’t to give more or try harder. Maybe it’s to reorder things. To give God my first, not my last. To come to Him before I’ve spent everything else. To receive before I try to give. Because it’s only when I’m filled that I can truly pour out.
And maybe this is what God has been gently, persistently, lovingly trying to show me. Not a rebuke, an invitation, to live differently, to be sustained, not just spent, to give from fullness, not from what’s left behind.
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