Excess and Comfort

I'm trying to clean the house up a bit (a lot?) before school starts next month. Partly that's because I always like to have things more in order before school, partly it's because I'm really going to need things in order before school starts because I'm guaranteed to have a lot more going on this fall than I'm used to during the school year and that leads into the last part which is that since we don't know what our public school district is going to be doing in five weeks when they start (later than usual start date), I don't quite know how to plan what my home schooled kids' schedules are going to be like! But that's all kind of beside the point. The point is, I'm cleaning.

See?

Oh. That doesn't look clean to you? (Hi, Mira!) Well, I'm only half-way there - give me another week. It looked worse last week! Let's try the kitchen island. Matt and I worked together and got that done over the weekend:

Wait. That doesn't look clean to you, either? Well, let's just say it does to me! Because I only see things that are EASY to put away or that will be gone by the end of the day (fresh sour dough bread doesn't last long around here!)

And while I was cleaning, I found a birthday card from my grandparents with my birthday check still inside of it.

Once again, the incredible degree of abundance that so many of us live with struck me. Here's a check for $100 and we're so provided for that I can forget it's there!! Sitting there in my hand was a piece of paper worth more than a month's worth of living expenses for at least one-fourth of the population of the world, and its temporary absence in our household wasn't even noticed!! That's coming from a large family that lives only a moderate percentage above what is considered "poverty" in the United States (as per the federal guidelines.) We try regularly to talk with our children about the incredible abundance that we have, and that God has not given us this abundance to make ourselves comfortable.

Someday we will all have to stand before God and give an account for what we have done with what we had during our lifetime. I think often of his injunction to us to love him with all of our heart and all of our mind and all of our soul and all of our strength. Bobbi and I in particular will regularly talk about how we could put the emphasis in a different place as well. We are to love him with all of our strength, with all of our heart. I'm not to love with your strength or your mind, and you are not to love with my heart or my soul. We are only accountable for what we do with what we do have.

So today I just want to encourage you to look at what you DO have and think about how you are using it. Part of the reason that I have so much house-cleaning/sorting/tidying to do is because of the abundance of possessions that we have in our family. Really - look at all of the food sitting just on that island counter!

We have a command from Jesus - a simple command, really:

Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. (Luke 6:30, and again in Matthew 5)

Lili has asked all of us for help, and we (Matt and I) are being her voice through the venue of this blog because on her own, she has no way to ask you. And we are so grateful to those of you who have already shared (and I know there are still some of you who have told me that you will be mailing a check, so I know that number on the right is not done going up - but it does include something that showed up in the mail today as well as my birthday present!), but I also want to recognize that the needs in this world are so immense that helping Lili is just a drop in the bucket. SO many needs. A family that our church helps to support as they have given up everything they had here to invest in unreached people in India was back in town a few weeks ago because they, as "tourists" instead of "missionaries" were not allowed to stay when everything closed down. They gathered with some of us for Sunday lunch (outside!) to share about what they'd been seeing and doing, and one thing they mentioned has been chillingly in my head ever since. A few weeks after they left, they received an email from a man they'd been working closely with during their time there, and he included a picture that he'd taken of the street where day laborers were hanging outside their homes after committing suicide because they were faced with the choice of that or starvation. If you're a day laborer and you're told to "Shelter at Home," every day that you do that is a day you (and your family) don't eat. The current crisis in this world is so incredibly huge that not a single one of us can be more than just a drop in the bucket. In some ways, that's freeing, though, isn't it? Because (in line with his command to love him with all of our strength and not all of someone else's), Jesus' command in Luke is not "solve the problem of world hunger" or "eliminate poverty" (both of which are impossible for any of us - worthy goals, yes, but possible for me to do? No) but rather "give to everyone who asks of you." Not one of us can, even if we're trying, hear all of them, but the ones that we CAN hear, those are the ones we're responsible for what we choose to do.

So that's where I want to leave you (and me!) Are you (am I?) using the resources that you (I!) do have to obey Jesus for the people that you (we) can hear asking for help. Because that's all that we're asked to do.

[Two links I want to include here: first is for a short article about the verse above that I really appreciate. Second is a link for an organization that our friends who were in India recommended as an organization that is able to effectively get funds into India to be used to buy food for families who are struggling to an even greater degree than normal. Because I know Lili is only one of many, many people who are begging for help right now. *You* know where God is telling you to give. Go ahead and do it!]