Offering Leftovers

God.  The master and maker of everything we see, feel, touch, and breath.  He deserves more than leftovers...but, unfortunately, leftovers is exactly what I usually give Him.  I fill my already overweight schedule to a point of extreme pressure on the buttons and obese exhaustion.  Meaning, I spend my time, money, and energy on things that truly will not matter when I'm 83 wearing diapers and will seem exceptionally pointless when all that is left is eternity in heaven.  Then, after daily meetings, rushed meals and hurried break times, I take what little gusto I have left and offer it to God.
Francis Chan wrote the book Crazy Love which has something to say about this offering of leftovers.

"For years I gave God leftovers and felt no shame.  I simply took my eyes off Scripture and instead compared myself to others.  The bones I threw at God had more meat on them than the bones others threw, so I figured I was doing fine.  

It's easy to fill ourselves up with other things and then give God whatever is left...Leftovers are not merely inadequate; from God's point of view (and lest we forget, His is the only one who matters), they're evil.  Let's stop calling it "a busy schedule" or "bills" or "forgetfulness".  It's called evil."

But somewhere in our minds (that is to say in my mind) I conclude that I have given God everything I can stand to give.  I'm so consumed with other things that I am sure will further my career, help me network, or give me that once in a lifetime opportunity....and those things really mean a lot right?  No, what really means a lot is God and my relationship with Jesus.  That is what I should really be concerned about, nothing else.
This inability to understand what is truly the most important thing, is something that Francis Chan referenced Henri Nouwen's book With Open Hands for further evidence:

" 'It is hard to bear with people who stand still along the way, lose heart, and seek their happiness in little pleasures which they cling to....You feel sad about all that self-indulgence and self-satisfaction, for you know with an indestructible certainty that something greater is coming...' Or, as Luke 9:25 says, 'What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?' "

When you choose to fill your life with insignificant tasks, you fail to let God in.  Simply put- all of that pointless crap is leaving no room for God to move.  More importantly, it leaves no room for you to love God because you're too busy loving yourself and your own accomplishments.
I will end with one last quote from Crazy Love, a book I recommend for anyone searching to understand deeply God's truth....it seems to sum up that with which I struggle on the daily and hope to overcome soon.

"When we put it plainly like this-as a direct choice between God an our stuff-most of us hope we would choose God.  But we need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing God or rejecting Him.  How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all?"