Playing the Numbers or Giving Thanks?

As I was checking out of Home Depot the cashier said, “Oh, the transaction number that just came up is my birthdate, they say when something like that happens it means you ought to start playing that number.”

“Well,” I said, “instead of playing the number we could give God thanks for our lives and thank Him that He knew us before we were born, and thank Him that He has a purpose for our lives, and thank Him that He loves us. Being thankful is more important than having money.”

“Yes, that’s true,” she replied.

We are called to challenge cultural assumptions with the love of Jesus, to share His hope, to share His Gospel.

Earlier in the week I talked to a young woman at Panera. She was fixing her coffee as I was pouring mine. I asked her how I could pray for her, She said, “Pray that I will keep my faith, I’m struggling to hold onto it. The stuff of life, all of the details, all of the things going on - they are so hard to keep up with and they get me down.”

The hope the world offers is elusive; pleasure, vacations, money, prestige, power, fame - when you do grab it it disappears - it is an equal opportunity deceiver. People need us to say, “Wait, there is something better, there is Someone better.”

Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life and that when we partake of Him that we will never be hungry again. Jesus tells us that He will put the water of life within us and that we will never thirst again. We’ve got the answer to the world’s thirst for love and purpose, the answer to the world’s hunger for meaning and hope. How cruel it is to have bread and not offer it to the hungry, how heartless to have abundant water in the desert and not share it freely with others.

“Holy Father, help us to see people as they are inside, not as they appear to our natural eyes. Help us to live with a desire to be transformed by Your Holy Spirit and not to desire to be conformed to the world. Help us to know that all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from You, but is opposed to You and is passing away. Help us to help those who do not yet know You - to live as Jesus lived on this earth; to live as Jesus lives in us today.”