Feast or famine

Nov

15

2023

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Nov

15

2023

My wife and I had dinner with some friends not long ago. The host couple’s home was beautifully decorated, and they were gracious in their hospitality. We were joined by some other friends and the conversation was engaging and intellectually stimulating and the five-course meal was simply incredible. We had an awesome time, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable dinner party.

Finally, we closed out our wonderful evening of fun and said our goodbyes and headed home. It was a nasty black night and was raining rather hard for the 45-minute trek back home. It was dumping buckets of rain, and very difficult to see.

As we drove along wishing the windshield wipers would wipe faster I reviewed the pleasant evening and then I couldn’t help but wonder what the homeless people were doing to get out of the driving rain. I remember all too well being caught in a similar rainstorm, or other adverse weather when I was homeless and hitch-hiking or hopping freights all over the country. I would try to find shelter by sleeping on the side of the road up under a bridge, or I would often sneak into a church and try to nap on a pew or floor, find an unlocked car and slide in the back seat for a nap out of the rain, or even on someone’s front stoop to escape the misery of the cold rainy night. Take it from me it’s no fun being out in the cold rain when you are homeless.

My thoughts turned to the wonderful evening that we just experienced. All the while we were eating and enjoying our delicious meal, the impeccable furnishings, and the clever wit and charming conversation, a wicked storm was pounding those less fortunate, and hunger was no doubt gripping them like a steel trap.

My wife had tears streaming down her face a little while back as we watched a “60 Minutes” segment on homeless kids. I must admit I teared up myself as they interviewed these little kids and they told how hard their lives are in dealing with the poverty and living in cars, cheap motels, and dangerous shelters. Perhaps the worst thing that many of them are enduring is being made fun of by other kids for having ragged clothes and shabby haircuts. In many cases the ridicule they endure from their peers is more devastating to them than going hungry.

I sometimes imagine myself as a fly on the wall watching God, the Master Divine Artist, creatively working at his easel. I can see Him hard at work creating creatures, gorgeous trees and beautiful sunrises and smiling big as they slowly take the form He wants for them.

I imagine Him rendering lush green fields and wildflowers to surround them. I imagine Jesus adding a few wood ducks, herons, and ibis; and then top it off like a treat of whipped cream by adding a whitetail deer majestically standing on a field’s edge as it surveys the Garden God has created.

And finally, He smiles, His masterpiece complete.

Or is it?

What is missing in this picture of God rendering glorious things?

Hmmm

Rain!

Life cannot be sustained without rain, can it? God in His infinite wisdom, (that we cannot even begin to comprehend) determined that rain was a necessary ingredient in life; who are we to question Him? We are finally getting some rain here and I don’t know a single farmer that is not overjoyed by it after our long drought.

There is an interesting little book entitled, “If you want the rainbow you have to put up with the rain”. God added rain to His palette of life, and after the mist of the Garden of Eden it became a necessary ingredient to sustain life. I experienced some rain in my life, but I can tell you I appreciate the sunshine and that beautiful rainbow now more than most ever will. I think my compassion for those less fortunate was enhanced by suffering through many dark days and nights of my own misery and now I’m glad I had those experiences.

Enjoy God’s blessings, warmth, and comfort today, but please don’t forget those who are less fortunate and suffering. Look at the rain that surrounds all our lives as God giving us an opportunity to help others who are less fortunate. Take advantage of it. A good place to start is by giving to the Salvation Army, or the “Sally Ann” as it is fondly referred to by street people.

One of every 200 families in this country had to visit a homeless shelter last year. These folks for the most part are not wretched despicable street bums, but are merely some people who got caught up in a bad economic downturn, being a widow or abused, abandoned, or other unplanned disaster often through absolutely no fault of their own.

Jesus said that the poor are blessed; shouldn’t we have the same spirit as we view the poor? The Bible states that kindness to the poor can water our own life-garden without rain. Amazing . . .

Is. 58:10
“And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” 

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