The Life I Owe

The Life I Owe

Once, at a favorite coffee spot near my house, I participated in a job interview. I was a silent participant and an uninvited one, but when the person less than two feet from you takes a call and embarks on a nearly hour-long review of her career to date, you feel involved—whether you mean to be or not.

There were other things to do, of course: finish the cup of coffee sitting before me, review notes for a meeting of my own later in the day, or just gaze out the window at the neighborhood as it stretched itself awake. But even as I attended to these few things, I couldn’t help but overhear.

For the record, I would have hired her after the first quarter hour. She was focused, articulate, and assertive on her own behalf, yet not annoyingly so. Her tone was crisp and engaging. She represented herself well. This girl deserves a shot, I thought. Hire her.

At some point during the interview, I looked down at the Moleskine open before me and at the marker kept inside to cue the day. My eyes fell on the words of the old hymn “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”: “I give Thee back the life I owe,” the marker read. The life I owe. This life I have to offer up to God is flawed, unworthy, and woefully inexperienced in holiness or even good works. When God came looking for me, I didn’t have the sense to search for him. And when Christ invited me to follow, there was nothing on my résumé to suggest that I would be an asset to his Kingdom! But he extended the offer nonetheless. Come. Follow me. Receive as a gift my so-great salvation.

I never deserved to be his disciple. Never. He “put his love on the line while . . . we were of no use whatsoever to him” (Romans 5:8, MSG). Yet the offer came. So my response is simple. I accept. Here, today, Jesus, is all I have for you: this ordinary life I owe. It’s yours for whatever purpose you desire, to be spent in love and joy and gratitude, moment by moment, this day, for you.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8, NKJV