May 18, 2009

Cardboard Signs

Sometimes I think I am living in a personalized bubble. It is a bubble that usually shields me from the harsher realities of life. I not only have food everyday, but I have the exact food that I want everyday. I do not have to eat hard bread or stale crackers or mushy fruit or freezer burned meat. I live in a bubble of providence.

This bubble of mine also protects me from other wants. I drive a car that starts every time I turn the key on. If it is hot at home, I turn on the air conditioner. If it is too cold, I turn on the heat and the electric blanket. I wear clothes without holes and all of my shoes have soles. I have two kinds of toothpaste to choose from each morning (it is a mood thing). I live in a bubble of convenience.

My bubble covers my employment as well. I work in an incredible ministry and have wonderful people working alongside me. I live in a bubble of opportunity.

But not everybody lives in such a bubble. And before you start thinking of the “starving children of …….” (A made up continent my parents used to refer to when they wanted me to eat my peas), consider something closer to home, like the couple I passed on the side of the road the other day.

They were holding up one of those hand printed cardboard signs that read, “Living in our car. Help us get a room.” I am ashamed to say that my first mental reaction does not even come close to the reaction of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:33. The scripture says he “…came upon him and when he saw him, he felt compassion.” Instead, when I drove by this couple, my first thought was, “Why aren’t you working? Do you really need some help? Are you just lazy?”

Maybe it was because of my flippant mental retort that the Spirit of God focused His flashlight of conviction on my Bible reading the next morning. I was reading Proverbs 19:17 and it declares, “He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord and He will repay him for his good deed.” And Proverbs 21:13 adds, “He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be answered.”

I am ashamed of my first reaction to a cardboard sign. I am convicted that this bubble of mine should illustrate God’s goodness to me and I must be ready to share it….regardless of the work ethic of the person holding the sign. If you are having a bit of trouble in this area too…consider with me Deut. 15: 7 – 8:

“If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, not close your hand from your poor brother, but you shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.”

Let’s open our hands and be on the look out for cardboard signs this week!

Warmest regards in Christ,
Sherry L. Worel
Stoneybrooke Christian Schools