by Angela Ruth Strong, @AngelaRStrong
I’ve been reading the book of Leviticus and totally disturbed by all the talk of animal sacrifices. Many of the chapters are spent describing where to sprinkle blood and how to burn fat. It feels pagan and, you know, gross. So I’ve been asking God why it’s explained so thoroughly in the Bible. What’s the importance?
In today’s passage, I read about thank offerings, and the light bulb came on over my head. Because this scripture in Psalm 50:23 changed my life: “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.”
At the time I read that scripture, my first husband had just said he wanted a divorce because he felt like I didn’t love him. I was bending over backwards, trying to prove my love. I’d planned to fast and pray for him, but then I read about thank offerings, and I decided that rather than pray for my marriage to be restored, I was going to give thanks for what God had already given me. On that very day, the author of The Shack sent me his phone number. William (Paul) Young is the one who personally convinced my husband to confess adultery, thus setting me free with truth.
This hadn’t been my husband’s first affair. When he confessed to cheating the first time, I’d felt called to give up writing for a year to work on my marriage. This was a sacrifice, but I wanted to show him he was a higher priority. On top of that, I’d felt like God told me that He would reward my obedience with success.
Having my husband leave didn’t feel like success. It felt like the opposite of success, which is often true about choosing to love people who don’t love us in return. Love can feel like losing, but our love is never wasted. Because I’d made that sacrifice, because I’d taken time off from writing, I had the gift of a clear conscience when my husband left.
My sacrifices paved the way for the salvation of God. And they still do.
About five years ago, I had a book optioned for film. Every year the chance of my movie getting made grew slimmer. Then earlier this year, I had another opportunity to get my name on IMDB. I was offered a novelization based on a script. It sounded like fun. I wanted to do it. But I didn’t have peace. Thankfully, the publisher understood and encouraged me to turn down the project. Again, it was a sacrifice, and I honestly questioned whether I was shooting myself in the foot or not. Only a few weeks later, I got the call that Finding Love in Big Sky would start filming the very next day.
I don’t know how you define success, but I would suggest that though there are shortcuts, the type of success that lasts is the type that requires sacrifice. First, we make sacrifices to follow our dreams, then, when we are about to achieve our dreams, God asks for them back. He asks us to choose Him, The Dream Giver, over our dreams. It’s a sacrifice. It hurts. But, in my experience, He returns our dreams to us even bigger than before.
Moses knew this. That’s why he wrote so much stuff about it in Leviticus. That’s why when God said, “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way,” Moses was like, “Nope. If you don’t go with us, we’re going to hang out with you in the wilderness for forty years.” Moses sacrificed his chance to ever go into the promised land. But if he’d chosen to leave God behind, could the messiah even have been born a Jew?
Trace Jesus’s lineage back further to Father Abraham. What if Abraham hadn’t been willing to sacrifice Isaac? Would Israel ever have become a great nation?
David knew this secret too. He said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
I don’t know what dream you are chasing or what God is asking you to give up or how He will reward you, but all those passages in Leviticus make it very clear that sacrifice is essential for our success.
In a world full of happily-ever-after love, Meri Newberg feels like the last young woman on the planet to be single, at least in her Christian friend group. So when she’s handed a strange present at the latest wedding–a 1950s magazine article of “ways to get a husband”–she decides there’s nothing to lose by trying out its advice. After all, she can’t get any more single, can she?
Her brother’s roommate sees the whole thing as a great opportunity. Not to fall in love–Kai Kamaka has no interest in the effort a serious relationship takes. No, this is a career jump start. He talks Meri into letting him film every silly husband-catching attempt for a new online show. If it goes viral, his career as a cameraman will be made.
When Meri Me debuts, it’s an instant hit. People love watching her lasso men on street corners, drop handkerchiefs for unsuspecting potential beaus, and otherwise embarrass herself in pursuit of true love. But the longer this game goes on, the less sure Kai is that he wants Meri to snag anyone but him. The only problem is that he may not be the kind of husband material she’s looking for . . .
Angela Ruth Strong sold her first Christian romance novel in 2009 then quit writing romance when her husband left her. Ten years later, God has shown her the true meaning of love, and there’s nothing else she’d rather write about. Her books have since earned TOP PICK in Romantic Times, been optioned for film, won the Cascade Award, and been Amazon best-sellers. She also writes non-fiction for SpiritLed Woman. To help aspiring authors, she started IDAhope Writers where she lives in Idaho, and she teaches as an expert online at WRITE THAT BOOK.