Today I was in South City St. Louis running some errands when I ran into a woman named Pat. I was talking on the phone when she asked me if I could give her some money to help feed her kids. Coming off the summer in CityLights and wanting to pursue justice, I told her I would take her to ALDI and buy food for her, then run her home. She took me to ALDI farther into St. Louis where I bought $100 worth of groceries for her, which consisted of 4 or 5 bags of potato chips, 3 boxes of fruit snacks, only a pound or two of hamburger, frozen hot wings, two heads of lettuce, flour, sugar, oil, and a bag of apples once I suggested it... and there was more, but this gives you an idea. Then I took her home all the way back on the North side of St. Louis where I helped her carry her groceries in and met her 5 children and some neighbors.
And by the time I got to Messhuggahs coffee shop to hang out with friends, I knew I was angry...but why? So I talked to my friends about and discovered a couple of things. 1) I was taken advantage of. 2) I really hated that fact because I really just want to love people well, and know how to do that well...
To be continued...
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2 comments:
Thanks for your honesty sister. We can pray for each other - to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as He leads us and to freely give our lives away. luv ya!
Wow. Yeah, I still don't know what that means either.
When you make an investment in someone's life because you are motivated to show God's love to someone, does God require you to be prudent as well, or are we free to love people extragently despite the consequences/results? I wrestle with that sometimes.
When you make an investment, you want it to pay off, right? It's the prudence of the Protestant work ethic in action. (Or, I dunno, is that making serving God and serving Mammon identical? Tricky thing to discern.) How I yearn that all my actions toward others might cause them to turn to Jesus or have some other positive character development! But I guess we are never guaranteed that any acts of kindness we might show by adding (in economic terms) labor or capital to someone's life is going to be received with the gratitude that I so easily believe it deserves.
But I am encouraged by this. Jesus healed and fed and loved people who never said thank you. It's not too difficult to imagine that he did so even for those who never sought nor accepted him as Messiah. I wouldn't find it surprising if there were people lining up to see him who only wanted to appropriate or take advantage for themselves of his gifts. They wanted the gifts more than they wanted to better know the Giver. And all too often, that is my attitude toward God as well.
And I am also comforted by this.
Mark 10:28 -- Peter began to speak to him [Jesus], “Look, we have left everything to follow you!” 10:29 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, there is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel 10:30 who will not receive in this age a hundred times as much – homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields, all with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life. 10:31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
God will not fail to reward you for anything you do in faith that you have placed on His truth. If not right away or on this earth, then in the age to come. (And I admit that the flavor of pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by, doesn't always satisfy me right now, especially when I'm feeling abused. More grace, more mercy, Lord.)
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