Yesterday, I wrote at length about a refrigerator that doesn’t function the way I want. I said that it was a simplification for me to just drink tap water. That is not completely true. I am greatly blessed to have clean, available tap water. That is not true in places like Africa, Flint, Michigan or eastern Ukraine. I am grateful for refrigeration and ashamed that such a blessing became, for me, an annoyance.
I am blessed that I don’t have to walk 3 miles to get water – water that is often dirty and disease laden – like many do in Africa.
I am blessed that I can eat what I want and even throw food away, knowing that I can always get more – an unheard-of luxury in many places.
I am blessed that there are no armed conflicts in my neighborhood, no shelling in the night, no neighbors dying in the street.
I am ashamed that I am not continually awed by the blessings God pours on me and for thinking those blessings are mine by right.
What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift? 1 Corinthians 4:7b NLT
When I was small, my mother would give me a dime to put in the bank at Sunday School. Perhaps God blesses us so we too have something to give. An important Lenten practice is Charity. Giving money or doing something good for others is our response to God’s grace, generosity and love. If I used my possessions wisely, I could bless those who have need.
Our time. talents, and treasure are on loan to us from God.
Give them away with unlimited generosity.
Derwin Gray, Limitless Life
Each person’s giving is between them and God, whether of money, time, resources, or abilities. But the bottom line is this:
Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back.
Louise Hay
It is simple, that is, unless we make it complicated.