God Gives

I vaguely remember a story about a missionary standing beside a pagan priest, admiring their spectacular temple that was made of precious stones and overlaid with gold. He asked the priest, 'this  must have cost a lot to build?', to which the priest replied, 'it is for the gods, we do not ask how much it will cost.'

After a good while our neighbor, who strangely has grown cold towards us in the past month, surprisingly said a friendly quip to my wife yesterday as she was struggling to bring in the rice she bought for us. Immediately we saw it as an opportunity to do something for her to win her favor back. It has been Tina's desire to give food away for so long, and this was a good opportunity. We have been living among our neighbors three months now and we still haven't done anything for them.

Yesterday, a client sent a timely downpayment for a sideline I have been doing for two weeks now (the LORD has never failed to give us food in due season). Our supplies are depleted and my son needs heavy medication for his epilepsy, but as the good LORD has taught us time and again, it is in giving that we gain. In my wife's early morning devotions this was impressed to her,

And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.
1 Kings 17:13,14

We originally wanted to help just our particular neighbor, but the names quickly added up, until we had a list for 13 houses. But then we remembered more faces, and so it became 15, and after careful thinking, we added 2 more families. But what of our needs? It doesn't matter, and it should not matter. This was for the LORD. We are giving our worries to Him. He is able to feed us, and if He will not, we will still worship Him. Our funds allowed only 13 families at 3 kilos of rice for each, but spending another thousand more in return that these souls might somehow think on God through our kindness is worth the loss on our end. We will just have to adjust our own rations. We arrived at 17 families at 4 kilos each.

And what better way to lift Christ up through his ministering body, the church? It seemed proper that the people would see God's blessing being channeled through the ministry, rather than through us. It matters not from whom or with what, but that Christ should be magnified. God gave it, and it should return back to God to His praise. We included a short hand-written note with Psalm 107:13 and a free smiley. Our dear pastor and brother Ronnie cheerfully gave to the few houses surrounding the church building.

 

The people expressed their heartwarming gratitude to the simple gesture. It was more than enough reward to see their smiles. In this time of need wherein, our movements are severely restricted with already limited funds slowly being depleted, every little bit is already a big help, especially in this area. Like Lot it pains us to hear these souls curse their children and each other without regard. But we still need to reach them with the good news of Christ. May the LORD open this place up to the gospel one day, and may He grant us eyes to recognize it when the opportunity comes.

We may, in this world, worry about the things we give up and opportunities we lost. But in the world to come, we will praise God for the things and opportunities we both gave up and lost for His sake. He truly is so worthy. The truth remains: those who close their hands to God have much to regret. Those who opened them, have much to be exceedingly joyful about. The beauty and value of eternal rewards, and dreadfulness of eternal loss, no man can ever put into words.