Those People

The Phipps family is heading to Denver to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family in the faith and we are soooooo excited!  We’ve made a few quick trips now and then but this time we’re going to have four solid days with some really solid people.  Wrex has to work Friday in Wyoming – HUGE BUMMER.  In an effort to save money, we’re only taking one vehicle which leaves me transportation-less on Friday.  So?  I put out the all-call on Facebook and we were humbled and blessed to have so many friends respond with offers for us to borrow their cars/trucks/vans.

The first friend to reply is such a dandy.  When I called her back, she said she’d leave the carseats in and that we could borrow the vehicle all weekend if we needed.  She said, “Heck,  come in, eat a meal and have a party at my house if you want – I don’t care!”  She and her husband are THOSE people.  You know, the ones that send you home with way more than you came with…the ones who feed your kid snack after snack and drink after drink and let them take the cup home…the ones who upgrade their things and bless people with the earlier version instead of selling it for a little pocket money.  They are those people who really get what our stuff is all about and Who it really belongs to.

This house we live in?  It’s the Lord’s.  The car I drive?  It’s the Lord’s.  The car I borrow?  Also the Lord’s.  The paycheck my husband draws?  The Lord’s.  These kids of mine?  The Lord’s.  The clothes in my closet and the shoes on my feet?  The Lord’s.  The animals in our pasture?  The Lord’s.   He’s allowing me to borrow them, to care for them and to use them for His glory. 

Every. single. thing. we. “own.” is the Lord’s.  They are not ours.  When we regard them as His, we tend to hold them a little more loosely; we don’t put our hope in them, we don’t idolize them, we don’t hold them with selfish ambition.  When we know that these things were provided by THE Provider, we gain a mindset that acknowledges His provision.  It’s an understanding that pushes out that orphan mentality that makes us snatch up our stuff, hold it close to our chest and shelter it from outsiders; the mentality that tries to convince us that we better not lend them out because “what if?”  What if something happens and they are damaged?  What if something happens and they aren’t repairable?  It’s the mentality that tells us that the Lord will never provide again; it’s the mentality that puts the something above the someone.

But, when our faith isn’t in an object, a funny thing happens.   When we release our grasp on these “things” and share them more freely…when we are willing to open our hands to give them away…

our hands are now open and ripe for the receiving of the blessing that lies in giving.  When our fists are so tightly clenched around our stuff…stuff that moth and rust will destroy or that thieves can steal …we can’t possibly receive any of the blessings and goodness of the Lord; our hands just can’t contain it. 

He is a giver.  He doesn’t withhold good things from His kids – why should we withhold our things from our fellow brothers and sisters?  He will provide.  He always has.  He always will.  And sometimes that provision comes in the form of our being willing to share what we have been given with others.

Thank you, sweet friends, for living a life with hands wide open.  I pray the Lord blesses you; blesses you with His presence, His goodness and His grace…and with even more for you to give away.