April 23, 2007
The Giving Kind
READ: Ruth 2:14-20
Blessed be he of the Lord, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead! —Ruth 2:20
At one end of the truck terminal where H. H. Lee worked years ago was a coal company. Nearby was a railroad, and each day several freight trains passed by. Lee often noticed that the owner of the company, who was a Christian, threw chunks of coal over the fence at various places along the track. One day he asked the man why he did this.
The man replied, “An elderly woman lives across the street, and I know that her pension is inadequate to buy enough coal. After the trains go by, she walks along and picks up the pieces she thinks have fallen from the coal car behind the engine. She doesn’t realize that diesels have replaced steam locomotives. I don’t want to disappoint her, so I just throw some pieces over the fence.”
That’s Christianity in action! The book of Ruth vividly portrays this principle of giving. When Boaz saw Ruth gathering grain behind the reapers in his field, he commanded them to leave some handfuls of grain for her. To her, this was a blessing from the Lord.
In the same way, the people whose lives we touch need to experience God’s love through our compassion and generosity. That’s why we should ask God to make us aware of opportunities to show kindness.
Though its end you may not see,
It will reach like widening ripples
Down a long eternity. —Anon.
