Let’s Make A Deal

Have you ever likened your journey with the Lord to a series of “Let’s Make a Deal” episodes? I did for way too long.

You do remember the show, don’t you? For the younger readers, they’ve apparently re-made it. But back in the day, the audience would wear crazy costumes, and it seemed the more eye-catching they were, the better their chance of being picked to make a deal. It seemed they just had to do enough to get noticed. If you were picked, you might leave quite a bit better off than you came…but you might not.

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Here’s a basic description of the game from years ago. 

The format of Let’s Make a Deal involves selected members of the studio audience, referred to as “traders,” making deals with the host. In most cases, a trader will be offered something of value and given a choice of whether to keep it or exchange it for a different item. The program’s defining game mechanism is that the other item is hidden from the trader until that choice is made. The trader thus does not know if they are getting something of equal or greater value or a prize that is referred to as a “zonk,” an item purposely chosen to be of little or no value to the trader.

If a contestant did well, they would bask in the glory of their good fortune. The ones who didn’t win often just seemed to have a bit of bad luck. Giving up their guaranteed gift for what was behind door number two, they waited with hope and expectation as it opened. Behind it was a goat or other random farm animal or something else of no value to them. They were “zonked.” Now they are left with nothing. Too bad they’re so unlucky.

Do you see where I’m going with this? How lucky do you feel?  

“Let’s Make A Deal” was the story of my life for many years with the Lord, although I wouldn’t have said it or even realized it for much of the time.

• Do enough good things to get noticed daily. And if you blow it, you might as well forget it for the day because God might be angry. So, clean it up and get back to “getting noticed” again tomorrow.
• What do I do with this gift of life, my current situation, God has placed in my hands? He’s asking me to put it back in His hands and trust Him with what’s behind door number 2. What if it’s a “zonk?” What if I give up this “life I can’t complain about” for what’s behind that door and find that it’s a trick or, much worse than what I have, not better? 
• Can I trust God? If I risk on Him, will I regret it?

Yesterday morning, my youngest daughter, Sophie was sharing with me about a situation in her life with which she’s been struggling. She said that God was asking her to give to Him, to surrender it. She thought she had. She didn’t realize that even in her surrender, she had managed to slip in a deal.  

“God, I’ll give this to you. Since I’m going to show you I trust You by letting go, would you honor my surrender by giving it right back?

In her heart, as she felt God asking her to surrender she struggled with thoughts like:

But, God, this is a good thing.

Why do I have to give this up if it’s a good thing?

What’s the point?  

Can’t I walk with You and have this too?

I can relate in so many ways! Many, many times over the years I’d be going about my life, minding my buisness and God would ask me to give something to Him.

“But God, why?” God often took opportunities to show me how willing or reluctant I was to trust Him. Every time I was willing to give EVEN THE GOOD THINGS back to Him, He gave me more in return.

At 16, God is already asking Sophie for all of her heart and all of her plans and possessions. It’s one of the most loving things our God does. He wants it all. How good it is of Him to teach us that we can trust Him! He’s not out to make a deal.  

But, could it be that we are?

Friend, there is no door number 2 with God. He’s not out to ask for what’s in our hands just to make an exchange for what He would rather we have, whether we like it or not.

No! He takes what’s in our hands, draws us into His embrace, and walks with us, leading us into all the good He has stored up for us, what He knows we cherish more than anything else because that’s how He designed it.

He gives us Himself.

Colossians 1:27 says of believers, “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

John 17:3 says, And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

The same God that saves us eternally wants us to know that true living is simply knowing Him and knowing Jesus.  No deal making. Just intimacy with the Father.

Further down in John 17, we see this intimate nature of God through Christ made available to us. Here Christ is praying to God and says of us:

20 I do not ask for these only (those who have believed), but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

He’s not interested in making deals. He’s making sons and daughters. Life is not a series of deals we make with God. He longs to draw close. He is not offering us an invite to the party but a seat at His family dinner table.

Let’s stop making deals and surrender all to God today. His glory is everlasting. His goodness knows no bounds. He is for you! And, through Christ’s sacrifice, God has done everything necessary for us to come to Him and experience the Hope of glory!  

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

A great resource for your encouragement is – The Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent.  It will help you understand that you don’t have to go to God and say, “Let’s Make a Deal.”