It is a routine, daily part of life.

I give you THIS, and in return, you give me THAT.

I give you $50 (or more), and you give me a tank of gas for my car.

I give you a compliment on your hair, and you give me a compliment on my shoes.

We call these exchanges TRANSACTIONS. And as most of us learned very early in life, transactions make the world go ‘round. For example, when I was a wee sprout, if I did my prescribed list of household chores every week, I received an allowance. If I refrained from beating up my sister, I got my meals.

I also learned that transactions can work in the negative sense. If I engaged in any of a long list of proscribed behavior – such as egging our neighbor’s house, shaving the cat, or shooting my brother in the butt with a BB gun – I received something I really didn’t want.

Like a whooping from my dad. Or ZERO allowance. Or being grounded for a week.

Transactions become such an ingrained part of life that we can easily find ourselves carrying a transactional mindset into our moral and spiritual lives. I was reminded of this phenomenon recently while reading chapter five of the book, The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller… a book I highly recommend, by the way.

[Just as a quick aside here; the word “prodigal,” I was surprised to learn, means “lavish.” Or “extravagant.” When I read the parable of the prodigal son – in the 15^th chapter of Luke’s gospel – I thought prodigal meant something like lost, or wayward, or rebellious. But no. Calling God “prodigal” points to the quality of God’s love and forgiveness as being lavish or extravagant. Now you know.]

As Keller explains in chapter five, the older son in the parable – the one who did NOT demand his share of the estate and then run away and squander it in prodigal living – operated out of a highly transactional mindset. He believed… rather he KNEW for a fact… that his obedience, diligence, and faithfulness to his father would earn him a rich reward. 

Maybe even a promotion to vice president of the family corporation.

But then when the older son sees how his father rejoices, throws a party, and kills the prize bull for the younger son when that worthless scoundrel finally returns home, the older son totally loses it.  

“Where’s MY party?” he asks. “Where is MY slaughtered bull?” “I’ve worked and slaved my fingers to the bone for you for all these years, and never once asked you for a kegger for me and my friends. And THIS is how you reward me?”

Sadly, I kind of identify with the guy. Maybe because I am literally “the older brother” in my nuclear family.

But I also identify with him because of my own very insidious tendency to engage in mental score-keeping in relation to the good deeds I occasionally do. 

It is nothing grotesque and overt, but it is there, nonetheless. “OK,” goes the voice of the little green-eye shaded accountant in my head, “I helped that neighbor with her trash, and that guy who needed a ride to the store, and there was also that worthy cause I wrote a check to. So now I guess I just sit back and wait for the dividends to start rolling in.”

But as author Keller so wisely points out, that’s not how it works. At all.

In fact, he is brash enough to suggest that when we engage in this kind of transactional approach to life, what we are REALLY doing is manipulating God. With the “this for that” mindset we are saying, in effect, “See what I did there, God? Now it’s time for you to PAY UP!”

The actual GOOD DEED might look exactly the same, whether we did it to score heavenly bonus points, or did it just because it needed to be done. But God knows. God sees our hearts. God knows the interior “why” of what we did… or did not do… and judges us accordingly. 

Or as the apostle Paul said to those rascals in the church in Galatia, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” (Galatians 6:7-8, NRSV). 

Sometimes the reward for your good deed comes. And sometimes it doesn’t. That’s just the way it is. The way to take the temperature on your heart, though, is by noticing how you react when the payoff for your good deed is not forthcoming. Or worse yet, when, DESPITE your good deeds, you continue to find yourself on life’s Struggle Bus. 

The self-centered, transactional heart reacts just like the older brother in the story. It gets MAD! It screams and flails at the injustice of it all. It demands REDRESS! It cries out, “How DARE you!” It takes its ball and goes home to pout. 

The heart that pleases God just shrugs and says, “Oh well. That’s cool. The thing that needed to be done got done.” And then it moves on. 

“What difference does it make?” you say. “Isn’t it better for people to be kind and do good deeds, regardless of the WHY?”

I don’t know. Is it?

Abundant blessings;