My Best Perfume

My daughter is in 7th grade and was ready to go to a horse show.  She had applied a little make-up and fixed her hair, but the new thing she had discovered was perfume.  Oh, my.  For a horse show?  I can handle a lot of things, but perfume gives me a roaring headache.  Every time.  I sent her straight to the bathroom to wash her face, neck, arms, any where she had put the perfume.   We all loaded up in the truck, but I could still smell it.  It was hard to breathe. I asked her if she had washed and she said she had, but she had sprayed it on her hat, because it smelled bad…  We stopped the truck and she traded hats.  We had to roll down the windows on the way.  The smell permeated my every pore!

Look at verse 8 of Mark 14.  A woman found Jesus and anointed him with expensive perfume from an alabaster jar.  Some of those present were indignant.  Why did this woman waste this perfume?  But Jesus said of this woman, “She did what she could…”  What a beautiful verse.  “She did what she could.”  Jesus loved this woman.  He loved her for what she did for him.

Sometimes I think I have failed because I have not done great things for God.  I have heard of what others have done.  I have read about martyrs and those with great faith.  I have heard about people who have given up every material thing.  What about me?  What do I do for God?

I need to do what I can.  I don’t need to sit around wishing I could do what I see others doing, feeling guilty that I have not done what someone else has done.   I will do what I can.  I will honor and glorify God where I am, with what I have, using the measure of faith that has been given to me (Romans 12:3).  I will “waste” my best on him.  He will receive my best perfume.  All that I have is his.

What do I do for God?  I do what I can with what he has given me.  That is what I want said of me, like the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume,  “She did what she could.”