"You must eat it. Go back and finish all of it!" the director of the soup kitchen commanded the "clients", after he observed quite a few of them emptying nearly full bowls of spaghetti with meat sauce into the garbage.I wiped the trays the diners returned, so I saw people dumping the food, but I didn't think much about it. I figured maybe they just didn't like the spaghetti. I knew there couldn't be anything wrong with it since our workers ate the same thing for lunch. One of the problems was that we fed a lot of children whose parents allowed them to take much larger portions than they could eat.
I didn't realize the terrible consequence of their waste until the director told me, "We had to turn away a hundred hungry people today because there wasn't enough food."
That got me thinking about waste in my life. Not food waste. I'm a food recycler, so there's no chance of that. Leftovers? Ha! Throw them into a soup or sauce, or roll them into a ball, and nobody's the wiser. No, what I mean is: am I wasting the time and resources the Lord has given me? Might I be denying a fellow human being something good and needful because I take what I have for granted?
Jesus said in Luke 12: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required."
Oh, that I might I empty this vessel so that others may be filled!
1 comment:
Wow, that's a lot to think about... good stuff here. I'm feeling pretty convicted right now actually. The comparison stings because it reminds me that my time is not my own. The "food" I have to give to others is only what God has given me! I need to be a lot more purposeful with my resources, keeping in mind the gracious (and exacting) Master I serve. Thanks for the exhortation!
Post a Comment