Extravagant

It's interesting how some little things from your childhood tend to stick with you and impact on your life as you get older. When I was attending primary school in England I recall the ritual of trying to obtain a new exercise book. I would take my book to the teacher who would scour every page to ensure that the book had been fully utilised. More often than not the teacher would find a blank space measuring about 1 inch square and I would be sent away to fill it in before I would be issued with a new book.

We didn't throw anything away then either. Every last crumb from the corn flakes packet would be used and every last scrape of margarine would be used before the container was washed to be used to store something else.

Now, years later, I still find it hard to throw anything out or leave lines unused in a book. When completing my Life Journal entry each day I nearly always use exactly one page because two pages is too much and to use 1 1/2 pages would be a waste of 1/2 page. The organised part of me says that I can't start my Life Journal half way down a page. The Shrinks would have fun with me.

My old British primary school could hardly have been described as extravangant and most of the time, nor am I.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged on reckless love and today there is this passage: "Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that." Ephesians 5:1

There is nothing frugal about God. He is reckless and extravagant. And most of all he was extravagant with his Son. And Jesus gave everything of himself to us. Not a bit or 75%, nor 99%, but everything!

How extravagant am I in return?