by Roseanna White | Jan 22, 2015 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
This week, my husband went to a friend’s Bible study to see about helping them with recordings. Then the next day we went to our Bible study with other young parents. Then the next day, we went to church.
And those three days in a row, using three different scriptures, the same message was spoken. Purify yourselves.
Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
~ II Corinthians 7:1 (NIV)
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded…. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.
~ James 4:8, 10 (NKJV)
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
~Titus 2:11-14 (NKJV)
The force of them all, in the various contexts, was the same. If we want to be something different…if we want to be set apart…if we want to avoid getting sucked down into the culture around us…well, this is how we do it. We purify ourselves of the things of the world. We get rid of all the contaminants.
How? In the first of those Bible studies my husband attended, that’s what they were talking about. The how. And I love the answer they came to. That we do it by filling ourselves up with God. When we do that, when we fill ourselves up with Him, we don’t have to worry about how to get rid of the earthly things. They just don’t fit us anymore.
It’s kind of like eating right. I don’t know about you, but I love my junk food. And if I just try to cut out junk food, it’s agonizing. BUT, if I instead focus on putting good stuff in–if I make up my mind that I WILL eat 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day, do you know what I’ve found? That I’m so busy eating the good stuff, which fills me up, that I don’t have room or time for the bad stuff. It just stops mattering.
On the way home from church we were discussing the Purify Yourselves theme of the week, and my husband asked, “So why do you think this message is being preached right now? Is it something ominous? I mean why do we have to do this right now? What’s coming?”
I can’t really answer that, obviously. But to me, it didn’t feel like a doom-and-gloom threat–purify yourselves or else. It felt like a key to a promise. So often lately we’ve been talking about how we can change our culture. How we get the attention of the world and point it toward Him. How we speak to this generation.
To me, this message felt like a how-to. It felt like God saying, “Do you want to change the world around you? Then start with you. Get rid of the world inside you so that I can fill you up. And then you’ll Shine with Me, and others will see, and things will start changing.”
It goes back to a saying we heard a few years ago:
I wanted to change the world.
But I couldn’t.
So I decided I’d change my community.
But I couldn’t.
So I thought I’d change my church.
But I couldn’t.
I figured I’d change my family.
But I couldn’t.
So I decided to change myself.
With God, I changed me.
And then my family saw and was changed.
Then my church saw and was changed.
Then my community saw and was changed.
And then the world saw…
We can’t just change the world. We can only change ourselves. But WHEN we change ourselves…it doesn’t go unnoticed, my friends. But I also believe this isn’t a message just for my house. This is a message for the church.
Do we want things to change? Do we want the culture to realize where they’re heading? Do we want to reclaim our spiritual heritage? To we want to embrace the full authority of the Holy Spirit and all He can do through us?
Then it’s time we get off our rears and onto our knees. It’s time we purify ourselves. That we wash away the filth of the world by filling ourselves with Him so fully that there’s just no room for anything else.
And then…then we get to watch what He will do through His servants.
Pouring Water photo credit: Global Water Partnership – a water secure world via photopin cc
Overflowing Bucket photo credit: Kamoteus (A New Beginning) via photopin cc
by Roseanna White | Jan 15, 2015 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I often, like many others, pray for a word for the new year as the old one draws to a close. Unlike most people I know who do this, I don’t generally get my word before the year begins, LOL. Instead, mine seems to come the first time I go to church in the new year. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the pattern. 😉 This year, we were iced out of our first service of the year, so this past weekend was our first church of 2015. And lo and behold, on the drive in, it hit me.
Deliberate.
This is an idea that has been coming at me from every direction in recent months. Our church is going from a branch church to a full member of our conference this year (hopefully), which requires that we examine our constitution and by-laws and make any changes we feel are necessary. As we spent hours pouring over this foundational document in recent months, there it was: be deliberate. We were engaged in a rather sacred endeavor, establishing how our church is to run until someone takes it upon themselves to change the constitution. We were setting up education, membership, and business practices. We had to be deliberate in how we did this, and where we wanted the focus to be. We had to be deliberate in giving the authority to whom it belongs. Ultimately God, and then those who follow Him.
It came up again in our Bible study that we have with friends. We’re beginning a new study on parenting, were talking the other night about how we educate our children (those present on Friday were all homeschoolers). And it hit me again. Be deliberate.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that I’m not to be washed to and fro by the currents of the day. I’m not to just go with the flow. I’m not to do something just because it’s how it’s done. I’m not to call things “good enough” and leave them. I’m not to do things thoughtlessly, by rote.
In my world, there’s a lot of routine, a lot of habit. All well and good…but not enough. Because I don’t just want to be a leader, or a follower of God, or a writer, or a friend. I want to raise leaders. True followers of God. Focused and determined people. A man and a woman who know the value of friendship, of honesty, of sacrifice.
Will they learn just by observing? To a point…yes. But also no.
This is another something my husband and I were just discussing, as he reads the works of John Lake, a truly great evangelist whose teachings helped found several worldwide denominations. David had just gotten to the chapters where Lake was mourning the death of the movement he had helped begin. Where he was looking at these floundering church groups and realizing that there was no one to take up the mantle. That they had assumed, he and his colleagues, that others would follow like them, ready to lead and continue the work.
But there was no one.
I mused, as we spoke of this, that perhaps it was because great leaders are often so focused on their calling that they’re not focused on raising up the next generation. Because they believe (idealistically–not badly, but not realistically) that just as they watched and were convicted and accepted a call, so will others be. They think they need to be always on the front lines, not behind them teaching those who come next.
We’ve been talking a lot about how to change a culture slip-sliding its way into decay. But you know what? No matter what answers we come to, they won’t matter unless we also figure out how to keep it. Unless we figure out how to teach our kids that there’s no such thing as “the way things are.” There’s just “the way things are going right now.”
You can see it over and again in history–one generation feels a deep conviction, makes changes. They set up a society in a given way, and raise their children in it. But then, to those children, it’s just the way it is. They don’t remember the reasons. They live it, but they don’t teach their children anything but the “facts” of their world…and so those children rebel. Go astray. Decide they’d rather taste this other way.
Because no one is deliberate.
We need to be! Oh, how we need to be. Because it doesn’t take long–a generation, two at the most–for religion to take the place of faith. For prejudice and judgment to overcome us. For ideals to be overwhelmed by rules. It has happened countless times in the church, it has happened in society, it has happened in our schools. Good intentions slowly morph into legalism until the original intent is buried so far beneath the mountain of words no one can even remember what it is anymore.
I want to raise my children with deliberation. I want to raise them not to believe the lies of the world. The lies that say there’s only so much we can do, so much we can change. The lies that things are what they are. NO. I want my kids to fully understand that the world, their culture, their lives are ever-changing and always able to be influenced. That their God is bigger than the enemy. That they can do all things through the strength of Christ. I want them to know that there’s no such thing as second-generation faith. They need their own.
How to teach them this? Well not by a lesson in church every week and nothing else, that’s for sure. Not just by setting an example. No, sorry–if I’m going to teach them these important life-lessons, then it’s going to have to be through deliberate choices. Deliberate guidance. Deliberate words given at deliberate moments to usher them along their own path. Not mine. Theirs.
As a homeschooling mom, I’m not sure if this sacred charge is easier or harder. On the one hand, it’s far more difficult because I’m with them every moment of every day–and it’s hard to be deliberate 24/7. But then, it might be easier, because I know what they’re being exposed to every moment of every day. I know what conversations to have when. There are no surprises when they get home from school and say, “Well Jake said that…”
When I pray for a word for the year, I don’t always get one. But when I do, it’s never just a word for the
year. It’s a word for my life, forever. Like “
Shine“–I’m still living that one, working on it. “Deliberate” is going to have to be the same way.
Because if I want to be a woman of faith, I have to choose it every moment of every day. I have to make a conscious effort to listen to Him, to walk in His power and truth. If I want to be a mother who raises children who understand this, I have to deliberately foster them in their growth. I need to not accept pre-boxed, ready-made answers and instead encourage and help them in finding their own. I need to make sure they understand that faith is work.
I think a question for the ages might be “How do you overcome generational decay?” And I believe this is the answer: by not assuming our kids will understand what we’ve come to learn. By not thinking “just living it” is enough. No. We have to be deliberate–otherwise all we build will be forgotten.
Stone man photo credit: Travis S. via photopin cc
Winding road photo credit: bobarcpics via photopin cc
by Roseanna White | Dec 4, 2014 | Ancient World, Holiday History, Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays
I admit it. Readily. I have occasionally had issue with the Santa question. I have friends who never introduced the concept, and part of me always wished I had put my foot down on it too. Because I never really introduced it. I just let it creep in. Whenever my kids would ask, I would say, “Well, what do you think?”
And I was about to pull the plug. Then . . . then I looked it up. I looked up the true history of St. Nicholas, and how he became
Santa Claus. And you know what I discovered? That of all the many Christmas gift-giving traditions, this is actually the only one I feel has its roots in the right place.
Nicholas was from a city in the Byzantine empire, born in the late 200s and living through the mid 300s. From his youth, he was always given to matters of God. His parents died when he was young, leaving him a very wealthy boy. But rather than live in style, he was raised by his uncle, a priest, and soon followed in his footsteps. (Sorry–no Mrs. Claus.)
Even as a boy, he was known as the wonder-worker. He healed people of things like withered hands and illnesses with simple prayers. He calmed storms. He worked miracles. And he’s still hugely remembered for those things in Europe, where you’ll be hard pressed to find a town without a church dedicated to St. Nicholas. But do you know what else he’s remembered for?
His anonymous generosity.
See, he had all this money . . . but a heart for the Lord. So what did he do? Well, whenever he saw the needs of someone in his community, he quietly met them. He threw gold through windows. Down chimneys . . . and on occasion, it’s reported that some of this gold landed in a stocking left to dry over the banked fire.
Sound familiar? For hundreds of years, Christmas stockings always had gold–or a golden fruit, like an orange–in the bottom, to recall this story.
But the beauty of the thing is that Nicholas never claimed to be the gift-giver. More, when someone caught him at it, he would beg them not to disclose the secret, not so long as he lived. Because Christ charged us to give in secret.
After his death on December 6th, however, the stories came out. Story upon story about the generosity and gift-giving of Nicholas, who was soon named a saint and whose feast day was established as December 6th. So a new tradition was born. Whenever an anonymous gift was given, and especially on his feast day, it was said to be given in the name of St. Nick.
Anonymously–because that’s what Christ charged us to do.
Isn’t that actually what gift-giving
should be about?? Not the glory of saying, “Look, I bought you something you’ll love!” but the knowledge that we’re bringing
Joy to someone–better still, meeting the need of someone–
without expecting anything in return. Even the
Joy of seeing their faces when they open it.
That is true giving. And that’s what St. Nicholas represents.
So how did St. Nicholas become
Santa Claus? Well, because of the proximity of St. Nicholas’s feast day to Christmas, the two holidays eventually merged. But not right away. For hundreds of years, the gifts were given on December 6, and December 25 was reserved as a day of worshiping the Christ Child.
Then Martin Luther revolutionized the church and tried to do away with the saints’ days altogether. He was the one who said we oughtn’t to expect gifts from St. Nicholas. Instead, we ought to be grateful for the gift of the Christ Child. But in rather typical fashion, people weren’t willing to give up all their old traditions…so they just changed the name and began saying the gifts were from the Christ-kindl (German/Dutch for Christ Child). Which Americans later heard and thought was Kris Kringle. Which is how it became, ironically, another name for Santa. (Also note that
Santa Claus is directly from the Dutch words for saint and Nicholas, Claus being a nickname for the latter and “sinta” the word for the former.)
So you see what happened? In effort to change a tradition, all we succeeded in doing was losing its meaning. Santa became a symbol of greed to many, when that’s the last thing he ever was in reality. He became a symbol of Christmas-when-you-take-Christ-out-of-it, when his life was dedicated to putting Christ in everything.
When I read all this history, I was inspired (hello, future novel!), and I was also saddened. Because one of the most honorable traditions surrounding gift-giving is the one so often hated by the Church. Oh, we’re happy to give gifts…but we don’t want to lie to our kids. (And let’s face it–we don’t want to share the glory when we find that perfect something for them.)
Well, I’m not going to lie to my kids. Instead, I’m going to teach them who St. Nicholas was. More, why he did the things he did. And I’m going to hammer home that the beauty of the thing is the anonymity. Who leaves those presents? Well, that’s for you and your faith and your logic to decide. But the most important thing as a receiver of said gifts is knowing they’re given from love–not just the love of a friend or the love of a parent or the love of any other family.
These gifts represent the love of God. The love of Christ. Embodied by the anonymous generosity of man…a man like St. Nick.
I’m not going to lie to my kids. I’m going to explain that St. Nick is a real person, who did indeed appear miraculously to many people. That’s it’s not about magic…it’s about miracles. That believing God can do the impossible is part of faith. And that another part is being His hands and feet. Being His vehicle.
Being St. Nick. Not just on Christmas–in fact, we’re going to try to get away from making the day set aside for Christ being Present Day. But we’re going to give gifts. We’re just going to change up how we do it.
My challenge to you this year is to start taking yourself out of gift-giving. Start signing gifts “Anonymous”–or, as the case may be, “St. Nicholas.” Start leaving them for people to find and never know they’re from you.
Let’s start giving for the right reasons. And let’s give some credit to the memory of a man who always, always did. Santa isn’t a symptom of the evils of a commercialized nation–we are. Our attitudes are. Santa, if you dig back to the history, is the memory of a man who knew how to do things right. And I bet if Nicholas of Myra could see how his image has been changed over the years, and even hated by some Christians, he would weep. Because all he ever wanted to do was show Christ’s love to his flock. He would want us, just like I firmly believe God does, to get back to the roots of that.
Will this be hard? Absolutely. Why? Because of expectation. Because we’ll feel cheap if we show up without something in hand and don’t reveal we’ve already given something. But that’s a symptom of the problem, isn’t it? Giving shouldn’t be about our pride.
Let me say that again:
Giving should be about Him.
Not me.
Him.
Not you.
Him.
If we’re giving in our
own name…well, then who’s the gift about? Makes you think, doesn’t it? Or at least, it made
me think. Because giving gifts has always been, to me, about (a) the recipient and (b) my
Joy in giving it. Not really about God at all. And you know, maybe that’s fine on a birthday.
But on Jesus’s? I don’t think it is. I really don’t. And so I’m going to accept the challenge to myself. I’m going to figure out how to glorify the Lord and honor Christ on His day–on every day. And I’m never going to sell St. Nicholas short again. Because he understood all his life what it’s taken me a lot of years to figure out.
by Roseanna White | Nov 20, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
A couple weeks ago, my kids said something that got me thinking. We were in the van, heading somewhere or another, talking about how Christmas is coming soon. Rowyn asked what day of the week it was on, and Xoe said, “Thursday. Hey, that means that in a couple years, it’ll be on church day! Won’t that be cool? I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than going to church.”
She didn’t realize how she hit me. How those words would echo with me. On the one hand, I’m saying, “Yay, my daughter gets it! She gets the real reason for Christmas! She’s thinking about Jesus!”
On the other hand, I’m knowing some severe guilt. Why? Because never in my life have I gone–nor wanted to go–to church on Christmas. Christmas Eve, yes. Of course. Always. But Christmas? No way. Christmas is for family time. Breakfast. Dinner. Presents. Christmas is for gathering with those I love and…and…and
what?
When did the church part get pushed out of the day? Maybe it started as anticipating, bringing it in…maybe we can say “Well we don’t even know what day Jesus was born on, so why does it matter when we go to church to celebrate it?” But if it doesn’t matter…if it’s meant to lead us to focus on him…why not give Him the day we give Him? Why do we push him to the night before, to an obligatory reading of Scripture, to a single candle lit and forgotten?
What if I’m wrong, have been wrong all my life? That’s what my husband and I were talking about later that same week. What if–brace yourselves–what if Christmas isn’t about family?
That’s the message in the feel-good movies, right? It’s a time of hope. Of giving. Of embracing that Christmas spirit. It’s a time of believing in the impossible. Of miracles (which may or may not include Santa). It’s a time for drawing close to those you love.
Only…it’s not. Or shouldn’t be. I’m not saying Christmas shouldn’t include those things…but shouldn’t it be a spiritual holiday? Shouldn’t I be thinking more about the miracle of God becoming man than a snowman coming to life? Shouldn’t the Christmas story be more than an obligatory reading? Shouldn’t I be more focused on preparing my heart for God than in preparing the presents for under the tree?
I’ve heard it all, read it all, said it all before…and then changed nothing. We still go out shopping and spending and asking our kids to make Christmas lists. We make them write down every thing they want and don’t have–and then get frustrated when they’re more focused on presents than Him. When they get upset if they don’t get what they ask for.
This year, something’s going to change in my house. For starters, no lists! This one has really struck me this year. I am absolutely, 100% not going to have my kids focus on what they want. I don’t want Christmas to be about what they want. I don’t, frankly, want it to be about what presents they’re giving (though that’s better). I want the focus to be on what they’ve already gotten. What has already been done. A celebration of the most amazing gift mankind has ever received.
We got God, y’all. In the flesh. Putting aside his deity to take on the fragile bones and sinews of a helpless little baby. I’m sorry, but a talking dragon toy ain’t got nothin’ on that.
This year, the few gifts we get our kids will be given to them on Christmas Eve. Yes, we’re still celebrating the
Joy of the holiday by trying to bring joy to those we love–within reason. We’re decorating, because celebration is important. But
that will be our lead-in, not our what-we’ve-led-up-to. Christmas Day, we’re going to focus on Him. I’ve asked the kids to come up with things they’d like to do Christmas morning to celebrate Jesus.
They want to sing.
They want to pray.
They want to read the Christmas story.
They want to have written their own Christmas stories and read them to us.
They want to make a gift for Jesus.
They want to make a cake (or pancake) for Him.
That will be our morning, then we’ll go spend time with the rest of the family. First though, we’re going to get grounded. We’re going to lift our hearts and spirits to Him. We’re going to make sure we’re not making an idol of the holiday.
Because I really, really don’t want the day that we set aside to celebrate Jesus becoming man to become a tool of the enemy. I really, really don’t want that enemy cackling over how he’s managed to cheapen it, even among the Church–especially among the Church. I don’t want my God in heaven to be looking on us with mourning, wondering why our families are more important than His.
Like all the best lies, there’s a kernel of truth in the way I’ve always done things. Family is important. The celebration is important. The cheer, the
Joy, the
spirit is important. But not as important as the Spirit. Not as important as the
why behind the celebration. Not as important as the Father who gave us this gift, the Brother with whom we’re joint-heirs to the kingdom.
This year, we’re not just talking about the Reason. This year, we’re changing things. And for the first time in…well, maybe ever…I’m excited to think, not about what gifts or parties or songs there might be, not about what I’m going to do–this year, I’m excited to think of what God might do among my family this Christmas.
by Roseanna White | Nov 13, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”
John 14:12
I had quite a few verses of Scripture that I kept in mind while writing A Soft Breath of Wind. One of them that was always hovering at the back of my mind was that one–John 14:12. A simple statement, made by Jesus to all who believe. To his disciples. To his followers.
I’ve heard this verse for a lot of years. I know it. I believe it. We, the church, are capable of doing miracles. We are. Do you ever question that? But we are.
This past spring, I read a really, really amazing non-fiction book that WhiteFire Published, called
No Plan B: Discovering God’s Blueprint for Your Life. I’ve mentioned this book on here before, but it bears repeating–it’s an amazing book. Because it helps shatter the lie that the church has come to believe over the past 2,000 years. That we
can’t do what Jesus did. That we’re powerless on earth, just waiting for heaven.
No true. So not true. And the author points out why. Jesus didn’t perform his miracles under his man-power, obviously. He didn’t perform them under his God-power, either, or we wouldn’t be able to do these works also. He did them under the power of the Holy Spirit. That same Holy Spirit that lives in us. Not that comes occasionally to visit us when the worship music hits us just so, but who lives in us. Always. He is the one who healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, fed the five thousand, and raised the dead.
Has the Spirit changed?
No.
Has the church?
Unfortunately…yes. Most of us have. We can’t believe in the miraculous in the world of CG and special effects. It just takes too much faith. We can’t believe in healings–and raising from the dead?? FORGET IT–in the world of emergency rooms, prescription drugs, and routine surgeries.
Nelson Hannah challenges us in No Plan B to let go of that lie–and, for heaven’s sake (literally), don’t teach our children that lie!
We tend to look at the church of Acts as something…special (and it was). But something…out of reach (but it isn’t). We tend to look at it as “Back in the day, when miracles happened.” I’ve even seen (quite a few) publishers who say, in their requirements “Stories may not include miracles unless they are biblical fiction.”
That galls me. It really does. Not because I have all these stories that want to use miracles as a device to quickly wrap up the action, but because I want to shout at these publishers and editors, “But He’s the same God! The same Spirit! Why in the world are characters set in A.D. 30 allowed to do it, but those from today aren’t???”
In A Soft Breath of Wind, there are miracles. Yes, it’s biblical fiction. So they’d be “allowed” by any publisher. But the whole point of the miracles, in Soft Breath, is that it’s the power of the Spirit, working through imperfect humans who doubt, just like we do. But who choose to believe instead, just like we can.
Because Jesus doesn’t say that we might do greater works than these. He doesn’t say that “He who believes in me today–but not those who believe in me in later generations, mind you–will do these same works and greater.” He says, “He who believes.”
In my book, not every character believes. But Zipporah does. She believes with the faith of a child, a faith that she clings too as she grows up, even in the face of doubt from those who should believe in her. She believes in the impossible, because nothing is with God. She believes that what Jesus spoke is truth.
In A Soft Breath of Wind, there are miracles. But the miracles aren’t used as a quick wrap-up. The miracles aren’t an easy way out. The miracles are the hard part, because they require the characters to let go of their human understanding, their human limitations, and trust in Him. They require them to step outside what they “know.”
They require them to believe in him.
Every wonder why Jesus says we’ll not only do what he does, but greater? Because we’re operating by the same Spirit…but now we have him in heaven, too, making intercession for us. Sometimes when I pause and think about it, this just awes me. Jesus–wise and humble, perfect and bold–is fighting for me. And his Spirit is whispering into my mind.
Writing A Soft Breath of Wind forced me to look pretty deeply at this. Forced me to realize that if I’m not doing these things–and greater–it’s no fault of His. It’s a fault of mine. It’s my lukewarm faith, not the age I live in. It’s me choosing to focus on the things of this world instead.
I’m not there yet–I’ll be totally honest about that. But I’ll state it here and now, a phrase pretty popular this time of year with talk of Santa and that famous Miracle on 34th Street.
I believe.
I believe He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
I believe the same Spirit that raised the dead and healed the blind and wrapped time around His little fingers is here today, waiting to be called upon.
I believe Jesus spoke truth when he made that promise.
I bet you believe too. The questions is…what are we going to do about it?
*Sunshine photo:
photo credit: Hamed Saber via photopin cc
by Roseanna White | Nov 6, 2014 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
It was probably 20 years ago, though I don’t remember the exact date. I was just a kid, at home in my safe little world. But we had friends who had gone into missions. The whole family, gone for months at a time, off spreading the good news. This time, it was to Bulgaria. I doubt I could have even found it on a map, but off they went. A few adults stepping out in faith and a group of YWAM kids on fire for God.
Our friend Mike recently shared this story of his first trip to Bulgaria with our church, and though it’s so long past, it spoke to me on so many levels.
They showed up in a bus in this tiny Bulgarian town. They were there to preach to the gypsies. Now, I don’t know what you know about the gypsies, but let’s just say that they’re not well received in Europe. They’re the outcasts, the unloved ones. They’re viewed with suspicion and prejudice and have been for centuries.
And this town they arrived in…it’s not like any town we know. There are no fast food restaurants, no food trucks waiting on the corners. And to hear Mike tell the tale, they didn’t arrive with big plans. They arrived with big faith…and a few dozen hungry teenage mouths to feed.
He said he got off that bus not knowing exactly how he was going to find food for 40 teenagers–food was kinda scarce in that region. Times were tough. But he started down the road looking for restaurants that could take their crowd.
Then, down the street, a man came running. Waving his hand. Yelling, “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”
Make stopped, turned, probably frowned. Probably wondered if, somehow, he was taking the food from this man’s family by trying to buy it for his group.
The man huffed to a halt in front of him. “Don’t you dare,” he said again, “steal my blessing. I am to feed you. My wife has been cooking for days. Come. Come. All of you.”
This man and his wife had never met these people before. They didn’t know they were coming–even the group didn’t know they’d end up in this town. But the Spirit knew. And the Spirit had made arrangements.
The group followed this man back to his small house and found tables set up outside. Pots and pots of steaming food waiting for them.
Bulgaria has, since then, been a second home to this family mine loves so well. I always love listening to their stories, but this one…this one is something special to me.
When Mike stood at the podium shouting out an echo of that long-faded “Don’t you dare steal my blessing!” something went tight inside me. Because how often do we steal blessings from each other?
We’re a society of prideful, arrogant, self-sufficient people. We rely on the money we can make, the health insurance plan we can afford, the car we drive, the clothes we buy. We rely on us. Not on God, not really. Not most of the time.
And on each other? Forget it. Even in the church, we have this idea that it’s great and noble to give…but it’s chafing to receive.
I have a friend who jokes about having “the gift of receiving.” It’s a joke…but it’s also true. It’s a gift, one many of us deny. But by denying someone else the opportunity to give to us, denying them the opportunity to be generous, WE ARE STEALING THEIR BLESSING.
Because when you give, unreservedly…
When you give, without thought to how much that will leave you with…
When you give, not even knowing if the people will show up…
When you give, sacrificing your own pleasures, your own time, your own sustenance…
God gives back. And He gives back from His storehouses, which, let me just tell you, honey, are a whole lot fuller than ours. He gives back with eternal life, not just in heaven but here on earth. He gives back with spiritual understanding. He gives back by making less become enough. He gives back by turning people who were once sinners into saints. Now. Here. He gives us His glory, His promise, His Spirit, His truth, His power.
But if we’re not let to give–if we don’t let others give to us–then what?
As the holiday season approaches, as Thanksgiving looms around the corner, I’ve been talking a lot to my kids about how the most noble gift, the most noble giving, isn’t to the ones who will give us a present in return–it’s to those who can’t.
I’d say I also need to teach them how to receive, but to be honest, that’s something kids already know. Right? It’s another part of childlike faith, because every gift we give our kids is undeserved. They don’t earn it. They don’t give us something in return. They receive in love and give back love. Something we un-learn as we age, but which is oh so important.
Because I have nothing but my heart to give my Father. Nothing but my heart and my willingness to let Him use whatever else I have for His other children. That part’s not so hard to understand. But I also need to have hands willing to receive from others when it’s their turn to give–even when I look at them and think, “But I have more than they do, I can’t take this from them.” I can’t just give, expecting blessing. I have to be willing to let others give too.
The next time someone wants to do something nice for you or give you something, I hope you pause before you refuse. I hope you stop to think, “If I say no, if I try to do this/get this on my own instead, am I stealing their blessing?”
I hope we all pause to consider what we might be really taking from them by refusing to accept a gift from their hands.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.