Power To Act

Proverbs‬ ‭3‬:‭27‬

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.” Proverbs‬ ‭3‬:‭27‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I can remember a time in my life when the idea of being a believer basically boiled down to a long laundry list of stuff that I wasn’t supposed to do.  The only sense of “Trinity” connected to Christianity was “Thou Shalt Not.”

The trouble was lots of that stuff was fun.  I didn’t like the idea of God or anyone else telling me what I wasn’t supposed to do. The Ten Commandments were, for me at least, ten suggestions or ten pretty good ideas. At the very least a great Charlton Hester Movie.

Obviously I came around to a new way of thinking.  And then one day I found myself read through Martin Luther’s Small Casteism. He pointed out both a “no” and a “yes” in each commandment. It wasn’t simply that God was telling us what not to do, God was also opening us to the new world that would come about when we acted on the positive impulses of the law.

Not just “Thou shalt not kill” but also “we are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way, but help him in all his physical needs.”  And a whole new world opened up for me.

The old Christian faith of rules and regulations died and a new vision of faith as a means of preserving, protecting, and celebrating the giftedness of life rose up out of the ashes.  I saw then with new eyes how the rules and regulations had their place, not as ends in themselves but as means to an end, as participating in the very ends to which they would lead and guide us.

So it is that I hear these words from Proverbs this morning and I am reminded of how simple and hard it is to walk by faith.  We will have opportunity today to do good for someone else and we will be free to do it. We will be given a chance to love our neighbor. It will happen today and we will be available today to do it. There are people in our lives who trust us and today we will prove ourselves worthy of their trust by acting in a trustworthy manner. 

I read this story: A family sat at a table near me. The two adults and the boy ordered large glasses of orange juice, but when the youngest, the daughter, chimed in, her father would not allow it. She pleaded her case but to no avail, and I saw genuine hurt in her eyes. What should have been a fun Saturday breakfast out as a family became an unhappy memory for one of them.

The saddest part is that it was over something completely unimportant. Perhaps the father thought he was teaching his youngest a lesson about frugality. Perhaps he was hoping to teach her the value of a dollar. When I looked into her moist little eyes, I thought he had sadly miscommunicated. He thought he was saying something about waste. You’ll never finish a large glass. Waste not, want not. She heard something about rejection. You’re not worth a large glass. Frugality is a value worth teaching, but so is gracious generosity. The few cents saved that day were not worth a single one of those little tears. There is a time for financial restraint, for counting the cost, and for practicing some good Puritan frugality. The price of a car, for instance. The size of your house payment. Those are just such times. There is also a time to go ahead and splurge. Lose all control! Go totally crazy! Know when it’s time to let a little girl order that large juice. Frugality and stingy living are not the same. “To everything, there is a season…” is the wisdom of Scripture (Eccles. 3:1).There is a time to close your wallet and a time to open it even wider. If gray hair bespeaks wisdom, and it is supposed to, we seniors, better than the young, should know which season is which. I ached to go to that family’s table and whisper in the young father’s ear, “Buy her the large juice. She will be happy, and you’ll be glad you did. I am old, and I can tell you this is a moment to lighten up and loosen up. Tighten down another time. Not at breakfast on a Saturday.”

Beyond financial generosity, some who have lived and walked for many years in openhearted, openhanded faith begin to tighten their grip with age. The challenge for us in our senior years is that massive, crashing waves of fear begin to erode the shoreline of our faith. Frightening questions assail us.

Questions we thought we would never have to face. What is the burn rate for my life savings? Will I have enough at the end of my life? How can I keep from being a burden to my kids? What if I have huge end-of-life medical expenses? How will I pay for those? Will I be able to leave any estate to my heirs?

In response to those questions, we tend to tighten down. That’s not all bad, of course. If we are smart, we will clamp down a bit on our spending, which is a good thing, a very good thing. What goes wrong for so many seniors is that fear steals their spirit of generosity and leaves in its place the spirit of miserliness.

The man, at any age, who gives freely to his church is also likely to give to other causes. The man who habitually withholds his money from charitable giving is also likely to withhold his compliments and his praise and his love. Ebenezer Scrooge did not suddenly become a parsimonious wretch on his seventieth birthday. He inched his way into meanness.

Things will happen today that will tempt me to anger and resentment, it is going to happen because it does every day, but if we will recall these verses.  If we will see others in our lives through the eyes of faith. We will see others as just as limited and self absorbed and scared as we are. And our resentment will give way to compassion, our anger will be replaced by curiosity and willingness to seek to understand.

All of this will happen today.  Because all of this happens everyday. And today we will see it for what it is because the believers faith is not only real for us today but it finally allows us to see reality for what it is. God is at work in, around, and through me and through you and through all of those around us today and every day.

Rather than "looking out for" only "number 1" - for ourselves - God commands us to look out for those deserving of our goodness - whether that goodness is help, aid, praise, love, affection, attention, or affirmation. We should act decisively and give these deserving people what they need. We are to be a people, as Paul tells us, saved by Jesus and "eager to do good deeds!!!”

Father, forgive is for our selfishness. We so often notice only our needs or what we deserve. You have placed so many good and deserving people in our lives who have blessed us. We ask You, Holy Spirit, to open our hearts to see those around us who need our goodness as a blessing. Give us the courage to act in ways that glorify You. Open the eyes of our hearts, O Lord, that we might see You at work in each moment of our lives. Give us opportunity today to let Your love become enfleshed anew through us again today in how we treat and respond to our neighbors. Be a blessing. Love ya

Father, we love You. Amen