Will Work for Tuna

Keeping a Balance Sheet with God


I get the feeling our cats think we owe them something.

It’s not my imagination. Each one of our cohabitators—Shadow, Missy, B.J. et al—say it differently. The message is always the same, though. The slitted glance of irritation, the strident yowling, the histrionics and starvation throes when food isn’t in the bowl on demand. It’s not supplication; it’s expectation. Every graceful line and snooty glare tells the tale. The cat has been keeping a ledger, and I’m in the red. Time to tally up.

B.J. is the worst. I can almost see him don his bookie’s visor as he barters around a half-smoked cigar:

“Okay, buster, that’s four mice and one bird eradicated. You owe me six months of canned food.”

“Wait, you killed a bird? What kind…”

“Listen, I don’t care if you didn’t want the bird killed, see?” His eyes narrow, daring me to disagree. “I killed it and you owe me…two months of food, ‘cause it’s harder to kill a bird than a mouse.”

I start sweating under the glare of the single, bare bulb. “But…”

“Oh, and I only missed the litter box twice this month. At one can of tuna per act of obedience, that…” ka-ching! “…two hundred thirty-eight cans. Cough it up.”

Yes, of course it’s ridiculous. B. J. doesn’t wear a visor. Still, we often don our own loan shark attitudes as we try to strong-arm similar bargains with God. I was reminded of that when a neighbor stopped by after work one morning. My father bade her sit while he popped a piece of bread in the toaster. As he handed her the toast, she said gratefully, “You’ll go to heaven for this.”

“You don’t go to heaven for good works,” my dad said.

“Oh,” the neighbor waved her hand dismissively, “I don’t believe that.”

That little vignette isn’t meant to disparage a perfectly kind and generous neighbor. It’s simply an example of an attitude that is common among Christians and unbelievers alike. I don’t know if there’s a human on earth, myself included, who wouldn’t love to prove God owes us something.

“Yes, God, I’ve been keeping a ledger, and You owe me an all-expense-paid trip to heaven.”

It doesn’t end there. We often seem to think we have the right to bargain with the Divine over every act of charity or self-control we exhibit…no matter how many times we fall short.

“I’ve tithed a full ten percent for the past year, God. You owe me a 5% salary increase. Give me an unexpected windfall and we’ll call it even.”

“Wait, didn’t I give…”

“Oh, and I got cut off three times on my way to work last week, and I didn’t flip one of them the bird. Plus, I let someone in front of me during rush hour. That should put a couple extra rooms on that heavenly mansion, right?”

No, there aren’t many among us who wouldn’t like to pretend we’ve done something to earn our salvation. Unfortunately for that delusion, we were born in the red.

That’s not a popular thought. We all, like Anne Frank, want to believe that people are basically good at heart. The Bible tells a different tale. From Genesis to Revelation, we’re reminded that humans are sinful…hardly in a position to bargain with God. The most succinct statements of this are probably in the book of Romans.

“There is no one who is righteous, not even one…” (3:9b).

“For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (3:22b-23).

Bad news for that ledger I was keeping.

Maybe you’ve been taught that you do have to work your way to heaven. Maybe no one has ever told you that you can’t. If that’s the case, you probably don’t know that you don’t have to.

“…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 3:23-24).

Or, as the apostle Peter writes:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25).

No, we can’t work our way to heaven or run a balance sheet with God, because He gives us salvation as a gift.

Shadow and B.J. don’t really have a hold over me; they have no collateral to make me give them good things. No collateral but my love for them. That’s all it takes. Of course I give them the things they need…not just the necessities, but also the pleasures. I do that not because of the number of mice they’ve killed or the lack of bad behavior, but because I value their happiness.

God values our happiness, so He’s already given us what we could never buy. That’s a speed bump for many. It’s far easier to believe we can earn our way into God’s good graces than to think we’ll never be good enough on our own. But it’s only by burning our ledger and realizing God is keeping an entirely different set of books that we’ll ever be able to receive the gift of …balance paid.

We can’t bargain our way into what God offers freely. Thank God we don’t have to.