Eat your peas because
children are starving in India.
Did you grow up hearing
that? Perhaps the country was different, depending on where the
latest famine in the news was.
Eating more never really
worked. It never stopped the famine. It only got me fat.
But I think this
dinner-table attitude is more pervasive, and actually characterizes
how behave as consumers. We are told that if we spend then it
stimulates the economy and creates jobs and brings prosperity. So buy
that new gadget because people are starving in China?
This is not the way
stewardship reads in the scriptures. It is about sacrificial giving
and sacrificial living.
I have started a new
diet. For every pound I lose by Easter I am donating $5 to Lutheran
World Hunger and the local food bank. Now for every bite I don't put
in my mouth that I don't need anyway, someone else may get fed.
I have asked others to
sponsor me or join me. We have even applied for matching funds. Some
have said that it is for a good cause and that they will give anyway.
But now I will look at eating differently. It actually is a Lenten
discipline begun early. I thought I would do it for Lent but then
wondered how much more I would gain by then, so I am off and running.
Maybe you want to join me for Lent.
Maybe this could spill
over into the rest of my life. Maybe I could stop the "children are
starving" mentality in my spending habits. While it is true that
spending stimulates the economy more than saving. It does not
necessarily stimulate it more than giving. If I give $100 to a poor
person or a charity, the odds are even higher that it will get spent.
They need food and shelter. They are certainly not going to hoard it.
I will have to think
about it, but maybe for every foolish purchase I don't make, I could
put some money aside and then give it to a worthy cause.
Maybe just maybe it will
change the way I look at what I have been given.
Lord,
Change my heart that I might get as excited about what I give away as
about what I consume.
Amen
