On Tuesday nights we have a kid's Bible class we call "English Bible Class." We typically learn some words, songs and Bible verses in English as we go through our Bible study theme. Currently we are studying the fruits of the spirit, and Jonathan set a challenge to the kids last week. He gave each kid a pound of beans and challenged them to give it away to someone in greater need than themselves. We encouraged them to tell the recipients this gift was because of the goodness of God.
Last night, the kids came back and told their stories.
This class is a cross section of our city that skews towards the poor side. There are some kids in the class, who I legitimately wondered how they would be able to find someone more in need than themselves to whom they could give the beans. Jonathan made the point that each one of us can look around and find someone with more than us and with less. Whether that "more" is financial, social, intellectual...
Here is some of what they shared.
B--age 5: I gave them to an old woman who is so old and lives all alone. She is always lonely. When I gave the beans to her I said "goodness of God" and she kissed me and kissed me and said "God will bless you."
J--age 12: There is a family in my neighborhood with so many kids There is never enough for everyone. I gave them the beans and I said, "God bless you. Take these because of the goodness of God." and she could not believe it. She said, "Truly?". I felt so happy and full of love when that happened.
B--age 11: I know a woman who can't see well and she doesn't have anything. She always sits alone on a chair. So I gave her the beans and she was so happy. She was crying. I felt a little happy. I felt like I wanted to give more.
It crashed down on me so heavily: how often when I "do good" I feel content with myself. I feel justified, satisfied. But "doing good" or sharing in the goodness of God is meant to make us hungry for more. We are supposed to "feel like we want to give more".
Both Galatians 6:9 and 2 Thessalonians 3:13 exhort us not to get "weary of doing good". These are familiar verses that I turn to frequently. Like this time. But I have always focused on the weary = exhausted part, and hadn't really considered that sometimes weary = bored. Sometimes we are bored with doing good. We have let it lose all its magic. Sometimes our "good works" are so rote that we forget that they are an opportunity to show and be shown a part of who God is.
It isn't always easy to say and believe that "God is good."
In these last months as we try to cope with the death of our daughter, a phrase that seemed so obviously simply true can choke me on it's way out of my mouth. Standing in front of that class, telling them that God is good, knowing all the very very bad things we are all suffering every single day, can sound so empty.
But I think that is why for 'B'---a girl with so few resources her family's only response to a simple case of lice has to be shaving everyone's head... for a girl who pauses at a puddle in the gutter to cup water in her hand and wash the mud from her feet and legs as she enters the church building...for a girl who has been hungry and in need...for a girl who knows loneliness and neglect...for a girl who knows so much of the "bad" of the world...for a girl like this-- watching someone experience the goodness of God makes her hungry for more.
I want to be like that.
She, and I, need to know, to be shown, to be proved over and over again that God really is good.
I want to say with more than just my mouth that "God is good."
And when I see a glimmer of that goodness, I want to hunger for more of it. For more of Him.
