I’m still a little numb today from yesterdays loss to LSU. Normally I’d be happy we hung with them. But we should have beaten them. We had first and goal down only six. I thought about it all afternoon. I thought about it when I went to bed. I thought about it in the shower this morning. It’s amazing how much the results of a football game can consume my thoughts and emotions.
Now I wasn’t a total recluse after the game and make the rest of the day with my wife miserable. On the contrary. We actually had a full evening planned. A good friend of ours is the Executive Director of Memphis’ branch of Bethany Christian Services. The organization specializes in adoption services and ministry to orphans and single moms. There was a fund raising gala last night and we went as guests. And even though there was conversation with friends about the game, talk of how close MSU was to pulling it off, and a few woulda-coulda-shoulda comments, I was convicted by the night’s end.
There were videos, testimonies, pictures, and even a sermon about the good that Bethany is doing. But also about the needs that are still there. The atrocious conditions many motherless and fatherless children are living in both locally and globally, and the various ways we can extend both grace and mercy to them. What we experienced made for a long conversation on the return trip home. Beverly and I both felt called to do something. But what? We don’t know.
Help support Bethany Christian Services financially? Provide foster care? Adopt domestically or internationally? I’ve no clue. On one hand it seems scary. So life changing. But on the other….it seems….like something Jesus is asking lots of us to do. Especially in light of James 1:27.
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27
So as I contemplate the important things…like SEC football and orphans, I have to ask myself which are the really important things. And why don’t they keep me awake on a Saturday night?
They shouldn't keep you awake. You need your night's sleep to think on things clearly during the daytime. As far as this one goes, think on it for a while, see what options present themselves, figure out if / how it can realistically fit into your life.
After many moving presentations or after stumbling upon some situations, I have to take a while to distance myself from them to keep myself from trying to take care of most EVERY thing I see.
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27
I guess the Bible wasn't counting all of these divorcees who are financially shafted by their exes and are ill-prepared to fend for themselves. I have often wondered what would have been said about that. Rather than being a divorcee, I could have been a widow; but I have God-given restraint, so the ex lives on.
I really liked this.
Thought of anything else lately?