“No! I won’t give it to him,” cried out the six year old.
“But it will please God. It’s better to give than to receive, and you get lots of toys from McDos.” (What they call McDonalds in the Philippines.)
He shakes his head indicating, “no.”
“And you know what? I bet if you give your car to him it won’t be long before you get blessed in a bigger way. Okay? Let’s go over to the next table and give him the car.”
“No!”
It’s hard to teach a child something that goes against what his culture screams, “Take care of yourself first!” If he only knew. We were at the mall, and I wanted like crazy to see the bewilderment on my little friend’s face when the other young man received something he didn’t earn, or even ask for. There is something about “unexpected joy”. It looks right, and I know, it feels right. Then, if my young friend had given the toy away, I was going to take him to the gaming area where you play games of chance to get tickets, only to cash them in on cheaper toys, because he likes it.
I suspect God is the same way with us. “Come on, give, and it will be given to you. Trust me in this.” But it defies our human logic, and we hang on to something that is cheap. It’s so hard for us to imagine that we will have enough or more than enough when we are already hurting. If you only knew, there is freedom, and tremendous joy in giving. God knows of this joy, because He gave us his only Son, Jesus. Now you know.
Copyright © 2019 Mark Brady. All rights reserved.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Well, here you are. In the middle of life, and honestly, it’s not what you expected. What do you do? Give up? Run away? Get a divorce? The attraction is; wherever I go has to be better than this! Disappointing job, house, spouse, church, etc. doesn’t really matter. It sucks!
The above conversation was changed a bit, but is true. It’s something I had noticed as well, but didn’t know anyone else had. Several years ago I begin to see that after I walked into a place of business, any business, they started getting very busy. One day I had understanding as to why. It is because I am a child of God and I am blessed and highly favored. Therefore, the places I visit are blessed as well. The blessings don’t stop there either. I find favor among men in many ways and at many times, and am blessed.
God is perfect, but He doesn’t expect it!
I had a friend that once stated she doesn’t want to hear her spouse say, “I love you” every day. Somehow, she feels it cheapens the words. I asked her, “Well, how do you want to know you are loved then?” She replied, “Just knowing someone is thinking about me makes me feel loved.” Yes, the next question I had to ask was, “How do you know you are being thought of if that person doesn’t express it in some form?”
If you have tried everything, does that list include Jesus?
I once wrote, the act of dying doesn’t hurt. I am learning it does, when you die, while you are still living. What in the world am I saying? I thought I had fully surrendered everything to God, and then I moved to the Philippines following his direction. Now, he is requiring more of me. To give up my self-reliant attitude. Living in a foreign country, where they speak some English, but not fluently, and I only know about 12 Tagalog words.
brady, mark a. 