Give of Yourself

I am not having a bad day. That might just be because I have all of my own kidneys. I go in to Mr. Ulmer’s room to share some information I found when looking up news articles for POD and he told me a way more interesting news story. A man gave his wife a kidney and now since their marriage fell apart, he wants his kidney back. This is both funny and disturbing. But nonetheless, it made me think. That is sort of our society’s view of giving. “I will give of myself because that’s the right thing to do, but only as long as it is convenient for me.” As soon as things take a turn for the worse or even a turn in a direction we don’t want to go, we are like, “I want my time back.” However, time is even harder to get back than a kidney. And yet, we back away and we are no longer willing to give anything. Why? Because we are all about what is convenient for us. We wear slip-on shoes so we can hurry out the door. We use mechanical pencils so we don’t have to go to the sharpener. We buy microwaves and zap our food. In the end, the result is the same as the mushy radiated food—we give lukewarm tries and don’t help anyone but ourselves.

I have a radical idea (it isn’t really radical, but go with me). What if we inconvenienced ourselves and help others? What if we did something that made us uncomfortable in order to better someone besides ourselves? What if we brought out the oven of our lives and heated up our surrounding? (And I’m not just saying that because it is 5 degrees outside.) I mean, what if we started a fire for God? What if we stopped thinking about ourselves and started thinking about others? What if we stopped asking for things and started giving of our times, ourselves? What if we give until we couldn’t give anymore? What would happen to the world then? Wouldn’t you like to find out?