Skip to main content

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

Popular posts from this blog

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....

The Countdown: Eight Days

Eight days.  Do you know what that means?  Barely over a week.  Tomorrow will be one week from the announcement date. Are you excited? I am. So, today, I want to talk to those who wrote something for the contest, whether or not you entered it in the end. What made you start writing your story?  What was the first inkling of an idea that tickled your brain?  What was it that you liked about your premise?  As you wrote, did you have a favorite character or a favorite scene?  And are you glad you wrote it down?  Do you feel like you learned and grew in your ability as a writer as you tried out things for this contest? And, if your story isn't included in this year's Rooglewood anthology (either because you didn't submit it or because it didn't fit with the other four stories selected), what will you do with it?  Will you market it elsewhere?  Or will you lock it away in a drawer?

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. ...