Asking God for Help to Help

When you happen on someone who’s in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don’t look the other way pretending you don’t see him. Don’t keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don’t count the cost. Don’t listen to that selfish voice saying, “It’s almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled,” and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He’ll call God’s attention to you and your blatant sin. (Deut. 15:7-9)
But…
“Why should I give money I worked for?”
“He is just lazy.”
“God helps those who help themselves.”
“Why does she have so many kids if she can’t afford them?”
“Not my responsibility.”
“I’m not giving money for drugs.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I don’t have time.”
“What will my friends think?”
Yet…..
Scriptural passages about sacrifice don’t seem to address conditional contexts.
Perhaps our Creator knows us a bit too well.  God has a way of seeing into the human heart and speaking into it . The more our fingers clench around our “treasures of earth,” the more God attempts to unlock our grip.
That’s painful.
Giving up control always is.
But if we don’t we miss in the blessing. The peace. The amazement of watching God multiply loaves and fishes-enough to feed all of us. Abundantly.
Our fingers our an extension of the state of the heart. God desires to transform them. As we do our fingers gradually uncurl and have the capability of lying straight out as we flip our palms upward in a posture of surrender.
Are you willing?