Reconciliation

I have memories of my father sitting at the dining room table with accounting books, a calculator, and a pencil. When I asked him what he was doing, he said “reconciling the books”. My father was a precise man and his neatly written words and numbers elegantly displayed his approach to business. Accuracy was highly valued in his life. My father took monthly stock, inventory of all of the products he had purchased. He did calculations based on customers served and use of said products-in other words, he knew what he had and what revenue would be generated based on expenditures and sales. His books always balanced.

I grin, recalling stories of him catching a thief, a staff member that decided to be slippery, taking home a pound of butter here, a pound of butter there. To her shame, butter was a part of my fathers inventory count and it didn’t take him long to figure out when it went missing and who was taking it. There was lots of butter…who would notice when some went missing from time to time? My father noticed, that’s who. She was “let go” from her position.

Reconciling the books is an interesting concept wouldn’t you say dear reader? Balancing debits and credits, making sense or cents of our own accounting can be a messy endeavour. Maybe we feel as though someone has been stealing our butter, one pound at a time? I am laughing at this because it is oh so human, to want to trust and yet to recognize that sometime, somewhere, someone has snuck into our business and stolen something delicious from us! Or perhaps, we have been thieves, stealing from another? If you have played either of these roles dear reader, you are in good or perhaps more aptly put, bad company. My point is this-there is someone watching, taking stock, inventory. He notices everything. He is a master at book keeping and his books always balance but here is where he diverges from you, from I. He does not expect us to reconcile his books for him, in fact, he knows this is impossible for selfish me, for selfish you to do. He had to do this for us and he did, it is done. He balanced OUR books. Here is the equation dear reader. Thief<Saviour. In his mercy, he is not firing us in fact, he is very invested in us and has no plan to let us go. What he asks is that we accept his accounting, his reckoning, his reconciling of the books. It is a free gift, one we could never pay, or repay-there is no amount of butter we can produce and try to give back to get what we have been mercifully given. Reconciliation to the one by the one from whom all good things flow…

I ask you dear reader, about your indebtedness? Are you a thief, like me? Do you need to be reconciled, have your books balanced? Can you do this all by yourself? Are you willing to hand your accounting, your life over to the one who has managed to reconcile us to himself? We don’t deserve it but then again, God can do whatever he wants and has! Won’t you take what is offered to you today? You can be debt free…freedom.