Common Sense Instructions from the Bible: Part 1

A friend of mine was blogging about wealth (among other things) and how it is meant to be shared. You think about the lonely miserable old miser. You think about the joy they would have if they had someone to share with. Wealth is not meant to be squandered but neither is it meant to be horded.
My friend went on to say that God did not give us wealth as a trick test to see how much we would give away. And, as I read that, I thought of how many times it has been portrayed that way. "God gave you good things just to see what kind of person you are. You will be graded on the percentage of your goods that you distribute to the needy." Is that how it is? No.
But are we supposed to share our wealth? Yes.
God gave us good things for us to enjoy them. And we already established in the first paragraph that you will enjoy your wealth so much more when you share it. That's how it works.
How many times do we twist good instructions and make them into distasteful rules? Common sense shows us how much more fun it is to share good things -- why do we make it a burden? It's as if God said "Come eat this delicious meal I have prepared for you," and we said, "we are required to eat this. He must be judging us on how much we eat. Must I undertake this great sacrifice? Who is He to tell me to eat His food!" It's ridiculous.
Share your wealth. Make sacrifices as Jesus did. Rejoice in the path set before you. Delight yourself in the Lord. And don't drag your feet when He gives you instructions. :)

Comments

Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning. I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that. And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send." Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story. And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it. I wrote them. And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

Wherein I Still Have My Nose and Ears

I decided to take the plunge. I was going to chop a plot thread out of AAM so the story would fit in the contest word length restrictions. I saved my old version and set up a copy for me to modify. Stories are like woven cloth. Each plot thread is woven into the entire story. So if I decide to cut a character or a side-theme, I have to go through the whole book, chopping out the references to it. This leaves gaping holes and sometimes it looks like the whole story is going to unravel. Everywhere I chop, I have to readjust the whole scene to keep the flow. It's a rather ticklish procedure. Over the dinner table, I mentioned that I was chopping a sub-plot. My younger sister protested loudly (she hasn't read it, but I previously told her the general idea). Then my mom (who also hasn't read it) offered to read it and tell me what she thought could and couldn't be chopped. ...

Rooglewood Countdown: 12 days

For the next 12 1/2 days, as we do our final countdown until March 31st, I'm going to do 4 posts asking about something you would like to see in the Snow White collection. There are so many ways all of us, writers and readers alike, can win in this contest. Maybe a familiar name makes it into the final five -- hurray! Maybe a story in your favorite genre ended up in the collection this year -- woohoo! Maybe you finally get to read a winning story about an evil king and his Snow White son -- how awesome! So, in celebration of all the many things we can root for, I want to know some of the things that you think would be cool to find in this year's set of winners. Without further ado, here is my question for the day: What is a point of view you would like to see in this collection? Would you like a story written from the prince's perspective? A story from Snow White's p...

The Pen of a Ready Writer

Search This Blog