Good morning…
God’s wisdom echoes. “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal” (John 12:24-25, MSG).
How beautifully these words resonate with thoughts shared by Margaret Silf in The Other Side of Chaos: Breaking Through When Life is Breaking Down. On page 128 she writes: “You can usually tell the difference between people who have tried, on the whole to save their lives and those who have risked spending them. The savers are often quite comfortable financially and physically well preserved. They have, very sensibly, kept out of the sun and off the cigarettes, and they may look ten years younger than they really are. The spenders will have wrinkled faces and gnarled hands, and they may look ten years older than they really are. No contest, you might think. Who would choose to end up like a spender?”
Yet Silf asks a very poignant observation to end the paragraph. “The world at the end of a saver’s stories is not much different from how it was at the beginning. At the end of the spender’s stories, it could be a world transformed… Life is a gift, and gifts are for spending.”
With the final words of the chapter, on page 135, Margaret makes a thought-provoking prediction about the end of our lives. “My bet is that God isn’t going to ask us, ‘Have you been saved?’ but ‘Have you been spent? And if so, on what?'”
Jesus sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds dropped in their money. Many rich people put in large amounts. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on” (Mark 12:41-44, NLT).
What would it mean for me to spend everything on God today?
…Sue…
