He With the Most Toys Loses (Friday Devotional)

 

Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

- Matthew 5:42

Sometimes my kids don’t want to share with each other. Katherine will be playing with Legos, Andrew will want to add a brick to her creation, and she’ll recoil when he tries. Or maybe she’ll be looking at a book and he’ll snatch it out of her hands, prompting instant tears.

Whenever there’s a conflict like this, especially if it escalates into hitting or crying or tattling, I’ve developed something of a catchphrase: people are more important than things. You can be annoyed at your sibling. You don’t necessarily have to share the instant they say they want a turn. But you cannot let your attachment to a toy override your responsibility to be kind to your brother or sister. People are more important than things.

That’s the sort of simple message that instinctively sounds right when an adult says it to a child—but one that makes us feel defensive when it’s pointed our direction. As adults, we have the same sort of attachment to our toys—be they cars or clothes, purses or big-screen TVs—as children do, maybe even more so. After all, I earned those things by my hard work; I deserve something nice, those things are mine.

But Jesus offers a countercultural command: give your stuff away for the sake of others. Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, he tells a rich young ruler. Woe to you who are rich now, he preaches in Luke 6, for you have already received your reward. And in his Sermon on the Mount, he simply says to give to the one who asks you to do so.

Taken literally and to their furthest extremes, such declarations compel all believers to radical vows of poverty, and so we are quick to either over-spiritualize them or wave them away entirely. But Jesus’s point is so simple even a child can understand it: people are more important than things.

Every day you have an opportunity to use what God has given you to bless someone else. You can leave a 40% tip for the overloaded waitress who never refilled your tea. You can buy lunch for the coworker who mostly keeps to himself. You can give a generous offering to your church with no strings attached. How you do it is up to you; that you do it is a divine command.

People are more important than things. How will you show that today?