Perspective

Some times I wonder if I’m the only one that feels the way I do.  In my house money is tight.  We often have to forgo some of the things that we think we deserve.  I mean my goodness, (gasp) we don’t even have internet on our phones!

But yesterday I got a great dose of reality…

In order to tell the story it’s probably best that I back up a bit.  As Connect Pastor of http://www.thejourneycommunity.com/, one of the things that my wife and I have started is informal picnics after church at the park in which we meet.  We are hoping that it will be a good tool in building community.  We do our best to bring a little bit of extra food to share in case there are any visitors.
Saturday I went to the store for supplies.  I got some sliced turkey, a block of cheese and a package of pepperoni along with a bag of veggie chips.
Being the easily distracted mess that I am, I totally forgot to put together the items (along with the leftover hamburger buns that I had planned on bringing.  But my wonderful wife had everything ready to go by the time we were to leave for church.  
Well as it turned out, yesterday we had a couple of visitors.  They were in the area and they heard the speaker talking about God so they decided to stick around and hear what he had to say.  After church I invited them to join us for lunch.  Somewhere between church and lunch I learned that they had a need for housing.  As I served these children of God who were less fortunate than I and saw their sincere appreciation over a couple of sandwiches, some veggie chips and a few sticks of celery, I couldn’t help but think of how blessed my wife and I actually are.  We have been given so much!  We were actually able to share with a couple other people as well!  And we were given such an amazing opportunity to show the love of Christ in a tangible way!   On the way home I told my wife that I was actually still a little bit hungry because I didn’t want to eat so much that there wasn’t enough to share.  It turned out she was too.  But we had eaten enough to hold us over until our next meal- in our home of plenty.  And we were deeply convicted by the thought that we are pretty much spoiled.  We are incredibly blessed!
Each night, as we sit down to eat our meal, I hold her hand and we take a minute to thank God for what we have before us.  But tonight we really had a greater appreciation for all we have.
This week I encourage you to count your blessings.  And give thanks to God, the one who gives them.  And don’t hesitate to share with others out of the blessings that you have been given.