Selling It All

A while back I was challenged by the story of the young rich man who Jesus told to sell all his possessions and give it to the poor. I realized I wasn’t ready to do that. It was a sad thought for me, to proclaim I love God more than anything, but not willing to give up my paltry worldly possessions.

Then, a few months later, there was the reality that I am one of “those” people living below the poverty level figures. Yet, I’m not willing to give up even that. And what makes me so different from the other poor that people have labeled “those” people?

I recently made a comment that we can love (and help) others without being taken advantage of, but when we worry about being taken advantage of, we lose our ability to love and care for others. You see, when we’re focusing on someone else “using” us, we are focused on ourselves. None of the commandments, Old or New Testament, ever give us permission to focus on ourselves over others. In fact 1 Corinthians 13:3 tells us just the opposite. When we do good things without love for others, it’s nothing.

Then there’s the whole “using” concept ~ it’s just wrong. No one takes things from us we aren’t willing to give them. They may try, but if they take something without our permission, it’s theft, and so we haven’t really been taken advantage of. Now there are times we are not making sound decisions or judgments, or that we don’t have the inner strength to say “no.” But we can’t blame others for our own weaknesses.

If we are totally honest with ourselves when we read James 2, aren’t we all at least a little guilty of some sort of prejudice when we look at others? It may be the way they dress, the way they talk, what we perceive to be their income. In a crowded room (or church), to whom am I drawn?

My mother loved to go out to make an expensive purchase like a car, dressed down, expensive jewelry at home. The salesclerks would treat her terribly. Her husband would be with her and tell the sales staff that they needed to convince Mom to buy the car, not to talk to him. But invariably, my mother was shunned, talked down to, and sometimes just treated rudely. When she pulled out her money to pay cash for a brand new car, their faces must have been worth paying to see!

I wonder what my face will look like when I meet Jesus face to face. Will I have to answer for treating people differently than Jesus wanted me to? Will my own prejudices have won out over my desire to be like Christ? Will I ever reach the level of being able to sell it all and give it to the poor?

Crumbs

Sometimes I get discouraged. It could be about anything, but usually I’m too focused on myself and my life. Maybe my feelings get hurt, or maybe something doesn’t happen the way I wanted it to. But I think we’re all prone to moments of discouragement.

According to Merriam Webster, discourage means to deprive of courage or confidence, or dishearten. On the other hand, we sometimes try to hinder negative behavior with discouragement. Somehow it’s just never a good feeling.

I recently felt discouraged. About what, doesn’t really matter. I was trying to figure out how to fix it, which only brought me deeper into a negative state. Then the Lord threw me a crumb. I thought about the desperate woman who asked for crumbs from the Lord when it came to her sick daughter. And about poor Lazarus who lived off the crumbs of the rich man. And I rejoiced in even a crumb from God, because through it He reminded me how to fight my self-centered discouragement.

The crumb was the ability to rejoice at God working in someone else’s life. It was focusing on others that beat down the discouragement. It was looking out the window that drew me from the mirror. It’s not by trying to be undiscouraged that we find relief. It’s not some magic formula that we can plug into. It’s not even always a crumb from God. It’s focusing on things outside our own little world that brings us back to where we should be. If we want to be Christ-like, we need to focus on others more and ourselves less.

Listening

We have an activity in our church called "Love & Listen." I love the name (though I can't take credit for it) because it says so much in such a simple way. I was talking with a friend recently, and found myself giving him the same advice we use at Love & Listen.

Love is accepting someone for who they, where they are. There's room for improvement in all of us, but true love is meeting them where they are, like Jesus so often did. My favorite is the woman at the well in John 4 ~ He went to her because she needed Him to. He went to an unfriendly, or at least unacceptable place (Samaria) and spoke to a local woman (certainly beneath Him in the culture of the day) who was not the most upstanding citizen of the area, about things she could understand. He met her where she was, both figuratively and literally. No one was beneath His attention, whether leper or lame, Pharisee or unclean; He was willing to meet them where they were and share His love.

Listening is when you hear more than your own voice. If what you hear most is yourself, you're not listening. Counsellors are so successful because the patients do most of the talking. (Doesn't seem fair to charge for that, does it!) When you listen you find out about the person. You learn what is really going on underneath the surface stuff. You learn what they really need. When you listen you gain their trust, you show you care, and you demonstrate your love.

Listening to others helps you develop your 'listening to God' skills, too. I am comfortable in my prayer time in the silence. Even group prayer can have periods of quiet for me. It's the time when I can listen for God to talk to me. I must confess that I don't always like what I hear, but I love to hear any words from Him. Like a young child longing for parental attention, I long to hear God give me His attention. I can't hear Him when I'm doing all the talking. When I taught preschoolers, I always told them God gave them two ears and one mouth. They needed to listen twice as much as they spoke. I also pointed out that God also made us so our mouths and ears don't work at the same time. There is a time to speak and a time to listen ~ to others and to God.