Thursday, August 30, 2012

What is in your alabaster box?
How to lay our dreams at God's feet













The Beautiful Tradition

     I was reading the book Lady in Waiting by Jackie Kendall and Debby Jones, when I ran across this beautiful tradition.  
     In Jewish Tradition, when the young girl was ready for marriage, her family would purchase an alabaster box and fill it full of expensive ointments and oils.  How big the box was and how much it weighed was a symbol of how big the dowry would be for the marriage of the daughter.  When a man came and asked for the girl's hand in marriage, she would then take out the alabaster box and break it at his feet, anointing them with the oil, a sign of her honoring his request.
     We see this happening in Luke 7, when a woman, who was known in the city  a sinner, came into the place where Christ was eating and broke her alabaster jar and anointed Christ with it.  


Your Alabaster Box
 
     Whether we know it or not, we all have an alabaster box, too.  It may be full of our hopes and dreams, what we think our perfect wedding and marriage would be, everything we want in Mr. or Mrs. Right.  We clutch this box very tightly until we find the right guy or girl who we think could fulfill all our hopes and dreams.  So we break our alabaster box at his/her feet, hoping for the best.  And sometimes good things happen, but sometimes this person scoffs at our dreams and tramples them, and crushes our alabaster box.
     So we try to gather up the shattered remains of our box, pull it together and super-glue it.  It doesn't look the same.  It doesn't have the same dreams in it, as the originals have been shattered.  It doesn't even look like the same box.  But now we clutch it even tighter, because we know what happens when it breaks.
     How do we end the cycle of breaking our alabaster boxes in front of those who will never be able to fulfill and complete us?  We break our box at the feet of Jesus. 
     Why would we want to break our box at the feet of the Lord?  Because He loves us.  Because He wants the best for us, and His plans are so much better than we can ever imagine.  
     Because it shows that we trust Him with everything in our life, even our love life.  Is it hard?  You bet!  It is always hard to admit your ways are not the best, and someone else's plan is superior.  But oh the rewards if we do break this box for Jesus to have and do with what God wills!


Complete in Him
     Often you will hear people saying such things as this: "I am just looking for someon to complete me."  Or, once that one person is supposidly found, "Oh, he/she completes me!" 
     By saying that you are looking for someone to complete you, you are in for a long journey.  This indicates that you are incomplete, not even a whole person. Wrong! 
     One is not ready to look into a relationship until he/she find his/her contement in God.  You are a whole person as a child of God.  God doesn't make incomplete people because He doesn't make mistakes.  You are His creation, He loves you!
     When two "incomplete" people marry each other, they do not become one complete person, they instead become two incomplete people in a marriage. 
     Find your completeness in the Lord, and you will be content!



What is in your alabaster box?  Have you laid it at the feet of the Lord?  Let me know in the comments below!

God Bless you all,

Chloe M.



     

1 comment:

  1. Great insights! I'm currently reading 'Lady in Waiting' too ... great book, and the Alabaster Box analogy really inspired me too.

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