The Offering of Empty Hands
What if giving God your best doesn’t mean perfection, but honesty? When all you have left are scraps, God still calls it enough.
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1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.[a]
The Lord's Love for Israel
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob's brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
The Priests' Polluted Offerings
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord's table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts. 9 And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the Lord of hosts. 10 Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be[b] great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. 12 But you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food, may be despised. 13 But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord. 14 Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
When You Don't Know What "Your Best" Means Anymore
"A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name.” Malachi 1:6
That accusatory phrase is God confronting the priests of Israel, and He's not mincing words. They've been offering blind, lame, and diseased animals on the altar. Ultimately, these are sacrifices that cost them nothing. "Try offering that to your governor," God says through the prophet. "Would he accept it from you?"
It's a fair and devastating point. These priests wouldn't dare bring such pathetic offerings to an earthly authority, but somehow they thought God deserved less.
When we review this Scripture and its implications for our lives, a natural question arises: Are we offering God our best?
It's a good and reasonable question, and it’s the kind of question that should make us examine our lives, priorities, and worship. But when I read these verses recently, that question didn't inspire me; It paralyzed me.
The Question That Won't Let Go
I've been in a spiritual desert for months now. Not the dramatic kind where everything falls apart at once, but the slow, grinding kind where you just feel... empty. Burned out. Running on fumes. The kind where opening your Bible feels like lifting weights, and prayer feels like shouting into a canyon that doesn't even bother to echo back.
So when I read "Are you offering God your best?" I felt something close to panic, because I don't know what my best is anymore.
Frankly, I don't know if I even have a best to give. Everything feels like leftovers. Every effort feels blemished and insufficient. Every attempt at spiritual discipline seems marred by exhaustion and apathy. I'm not withholding my best from God; I genuinely don't know where to find it.
And that realization makes the spiritual desert feel even more vast. Because if I can't offer God my best, what am I even doing? If all I have are the scraps, depleted reserves, and the burned-out edges of what used to be capacity, then aren't I exactly like those priests? Don't I dishonor God's name by bringing Him garbage?
The condemnation in Malachi 1 went beyond conviction, because in total honesty, it made me want to give up entirely.
The Difference Between Contempt and Depletion
But here's what I missed on the first read, and the second, and maybe the tenth: The priests in Malachi weren't exhausted; They were contemptuous.
They had plenty. The text makes that clear. They had healthy animals. They had unblemished lambs. They had wealth, resources, and capacity. Instead, they chose not to bring it. They looked at God and essentially said, "You're not worth the good stuff."
Their sin wasn't poverty. It was apathy and even disdain.
They didn't lack the ability to honor God. They lacked the desire.
And that's fundamentally different from sitting in burnout, staring at empty hands, and genuinely not knowing what you have left to offer.
Somewhere along the way, we've taken passages like Malachi 1 and turned "give God your best" into a weapon, a measuring stick, and a way to shame people who are barely holding on. We've made it about percentages, capacity, and output, as if God is standing at the altar with a clipboard, checking to see if we brought the premium version of ourselves.
But what if that's not what this passage is about at all?
What If "Our Best" Isn't What We Think?
There's a widow in Luke 21 who brings two copper coins to the temple treasury. Two coins that together are worth almost nothing. Jesus watches her, and then He says something that reframes everything:
"This poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4
She didn't bring much. By any objective measure, her monetary offering was virtually null. But Jesus called it more than everyone else's because it was everything she had.
In John 6, there’s a boy with five loaves and two fish; It's a kid's meal. It's not enough to feed just one person, let alone 5,000+ people. However, when he brings it to Jesus, it becomes the raw material for a miracle.
The thread running through these stories isn't about the size or quality of the offering. It's about bringing what you actually have. Perhaps "our best" isn't about capacity at all, but rather about honesty.
Maybe in burnout, depression, and our spiritual deserts, "your best" isn't some polished version of yourself that you need to scrape together. Perhaps your best is simply being true to what's real. The exhaustion. The doubt. The two copper coins of energy you have left. The kid's meal of faith feels laughably insufficient.
Maybe God isn't asking for the performance of strength you don't have. Maybe He's asking for the honesty of the weakness you do.
The Sacred Offering of Showing Up
When it comes to honoring God amid hardship, what does that look like to you? Is it trudging uphill in the snow both ways? Is it doing the disciplines, like reading Scripture, even when the words blur? Sharing prayers that are shouts at the ceiling? Showing up to church even when it takes every cell in your body just to get out of bed?
Perhaps, sometimes that is honoring God, because sometimes perseverance is the offering. But I'm starting to wonder if there's something else. Something quieter and more subversive.
What if honoring God when you're running on fumes looks like opening the Bible and saying, "I can barely focus, but I'm here"?
What if it looks like praying, "God, I have nothing. I'm not even sure if you're listening. But I'm still talking"?
What if it looks like walking into church and admitting, "I don't want to be here, but I came anyway"?
When we approach our spiritual life amid dry seasons with that kind of perseverance, there’s Godly courage in that. When it feels like everything is pointing to quitting or walking away, that defiance is radical in the face of despair.
The spiritual desert doesn't feel sacred; It feels like failure. But maybe the act of staying, of not abandoning ship even when you want to, of refusing to fake it but also refusing to quit, and that's its own kind of offering. That's what it means to bring your best when your best is just showing up with empty hands.
Reframing: Orientation Over Capacity
The priests in Malachi had their hearts turned away from God; That was the problem. Not their capacity, but their orientation. Not what they could bring, but what they chose to withhold. That's the real question underneath "Are you offering God your best?"
Not: Is this the highest quality version of myself?
But: Am I bringing my real self, or am I performing?
Not: Is this enough?
But: Am I here?
Because here's the thing about the spiritual desert: it strips away the performance. You can't fake your way through burnout. You can't pretend your way out of depression. The desert reveals what's actually there, underneath all the religious polish, capability, and effort.
Sometimes all that’s left there isn’t much of anything, if anything at all. Some days it's doubt, others it’s anger, and some it's a faint whisper of hope that you're not even sure you believe.
But if you bring that and offer God the blemished, limping, barely-alive version of your faith instead of pretending you have something better, then that's not contempt at all. Instead, that's trust, and that’s the fulfillment of saying, "God, this is all I have. I wish it were more. But it's real, and it's Yours."
An Invitation, Not an Indictment
When we reframe our perspective on Malachi 1, there’s a renewed perspective found.
While apathy may be a symptom of exhaustion, it’s not the true heart illness. My heart may be running on empty, filled with confusion and frustration, but I haven't turned away. I'm still making attempts to sit at the altar and wrestle with my unbelief. I’m doing my best to scrap together two copper coins of faith.
God isn't asking me for what I don't have. He's not demanding I conjure up strength, capacity, and spiritual vitality out of thin air. However, He is asking for what I do have: my honesty. My presence. My actual, broken, barely-holding-on heart. He’s asking me to present the reality of who I am, so I can rest in Him.
Perhaps that’s the reframe I needed, and maybe so do you. Maybe you need to hear that "offering God your best" in a season like this doesn't mean performing strength or pretending you're fine or meeting some impossible standard.
Maybe it just means showing up and saying, "This is all I have,” and trusting that God can work with it. While it can be difficult to believe amidst deserts and hardship, Scripture repeatedly reminds us that God is always better at miracles with insufficient offerings than He has been with a pretend abundance.
The widow's coins. The boy's lunch. The honesty of empty hands. Maybe that's what He's been asking for all along.
TL;DR
The priests in Malachi withheld their best out of contempt, not exhaustion.
God isn’t demanding performance but the honesty of what we actually have.
When you’re burned out, showing up may be the truest form of worship.
“Your best” isn’t perfection — it’s presence, honesty, and trust amid depletion.