Last month I was driving to the store with my daughter Mona in the back seat. We had a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and the wind was blowing strong. I came to a stop light, which was red, so I stopped. Through the frost-covered side window I saw a young woman with a stroller waiting for the bus. She had her back turned to the wind, and a heavy blanket lay across the top of her baby’s stroller.
Now, this was not something new. I mean, I had come across this scene in our neighborhood many times before; but for some reason, in that moment as I looked at Mona’s covered car seat in our warm-heated car I realized, “We are not only blessed. We are rich.” Statistics that Rob Bell presents in a DVD entitled, RICH, state that in 2006 only 8 percent of people in the world owned cars. That means 92 percent of the world would look upon my family in our car and consider us rich. Around a billion people in the world do not have the luxury of clean drinking water. Approximately 800 million people in the world will go this day without eating a meal, and about a billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day. When put into this perspective my family is indeed rich.
I ask you to take a look at 1 Timothy 6:17-18 with me: “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” So what does this look like? This could look like offering to carpool with a co-worker to save on expenses; being a listening ear to an elderly neighbor who does not receive many visitors; offering your time to work on other church members’ vehicles; or if the Lord has given you financial gifts, possibly you offer to help a friend with overwhelming medical bills. In one way or another, the Lord has bestowed upon us gifts, and we are responsible to use them to His glory.
So we are taking a look around our community here in North St. Louis and asking ourselves, what gifts has God given us that we can offer to others? For Randy and me this looks like driving an elderly neighbor to the grocery store every week, helping our neighbor children with homework, mowing a single mother’s front yard in the summer, shoveling snow from her sidewalk in the winter, or offering to give another neighbor a ride to get diapers for her son. We look forward to how God is going to continue to reveal gifts He has given us so that we may extend those to others. This is our way of joining in God’s plan to bring heaven to earth.
Now, this was not something new. I mean, I had come across this scene in our neighborhood many times before; but for some reason, in that moment as I looked at Mona’s covered car seat in our warm-heated car I realized, “We are not only blessed. We are rich.” Statistics that Rob Bell presents in a DVD entitled, RICH, state that in 2006 only 8 percent of people in the world owned cars. That means 92 percent of the world would look upon my family in our car and consider us rich. Around a billion people in the world do not have the luxury of clean drinking water. Approximately 800 million people in the world will go this day without eating a meal, and about a billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day. When put into this perspective my family is indeed rich.
I ask you to take a look at 1 Timothy 6:17-18 with me: “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” So what does this look like? This could look like offering to carpool with a co-worker to save on expenses; being a listening ear to an elderly neighbor who does not receive many visitors; offering your time to work on other church members’ vehicles; or if the Lord has given you financial gifts, possibly you offer to help a friend with overwhelming medical bills. In one way or another, the Lord has bestowed upon us gifts, and we are responsible to use them to His glory.
So we are taking a look around our community here in North St. Louis and asking ourselves, what gifts has God given us that we can offer to others? For Randy and me this looks like driving an elderly neighbor to the grocery store every week, helping our neighbor children with homework, mowing a single mother’s front yard in the summer, shoveling snow from her sidewalk in the winter, or offering to give another neighbor a ride to get diapers for her son. We look forward to how God is going to continue to reveal gifts He has given us so that we may extend those to others. This is our way of joining in God’s plan to bring heaven to earth.
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