The Cardboard Check

The Cardboard Check

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in
all things at all times....you will abound in every good work."
II Corinthians 9:8

After waiting many years, I was finally presented yesterday with one of those oversized cardboard checks, complete with smiling faces and a photographer snapping pictures to capture the event. If you're thinking the lottery and a check with lots of zeros on the end, it was bigger than that. Maybe you pictured a check being presented to the winner of a golf tournament (in which case, you've obviously never golfed with me before) but, once again, it was bigger than that. Let me explain.

In the fall, I was asked to share some thoughts on the mission field and the needs that exist in other countries with a newly formed middle school group that wanted to support missions. I shared with the kids the heartbreak of seeing little children on the streets of Manila knocking on the windows of cars begging for change and about the incredibly poor living conditions of so many in third world nations. In response, this little group, composed of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, started to collect pennies, thousands of pennies, to help children in need in other countries.

The cardboard check presented to me yesterday, for me to take to the Philippines when I minister there next month, was for $130.21, collected by the Mission Warriors over the last three months. The skeptic might say "What is that in a nation with such poverty and need?" but I remember a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish who gave what he had and the result was thousands of hungry people being fed. And I seem to recall the story of a teenager stepping out of a line of soldiers, armed with only a slingshot, but being used by God to bring deliverance and freedom to a nation.

It is far more than a trite saying that "we may not be able to do everything, but we can do something". God is looking for those who will be touched, and can sympathize, with the hurts and weaknesses of others. We have to be able, as this small group of middle school students demonstrated, to see beyond the needs and wants in our own lives. But that is only half the equation. John wrote:

"Dear children, let us not love with words
and tongue but with actions and in truth"

The awesome side of this cardboard check is that it represents love in action, a group of children doing what they could to help others in need. Don't ever let the enemy convince you that you have nothing to offer God and that you can't make a difference. Let the example of this cardboard check inspire each of us to use what we have, gifts, talents, and resources, no matter how small or how large, to demonstrate the love of God and to help others in need.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church