Today’s scripture reading is Matthew 6:25-34.
“Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” -Matthew 6:33 NRSV
My mother has never been good with money but she has always been generous. I can remember time after time when she gave her last dime to help someone in need.
One particular night stands out in my mind. A woman called our house to say that she was cold. All she had for heat was a small kerosene heater. Unfortunately, kerosene heaters don’t work if they don’t have kerosene, and this woman had no fuel and no money. She wondered if my mother could help.
My mother loaded me and my brother into the car and drove to a store that sold kerosene. I remember watching my mother turn her purse upside down, emptying every bit of change in it, to purchase the fuel that would provide someone else some heat.
I asked my mother if that was all the money she had. When Mama said yes, I wondered out loud what WE would do if WE had an emergency. Mama smiled and said, “I think God will take care of us.”
A day or two after that, Johnson’s Food Town called. In those days, when you bought groceries, you put your name and phone number on the back of the receipt and you placed the receipt in a barrel at the store. Once a week, they’d draw a name out of that barrel and that person would win $100.
Guess who won that week? My mother.
You can say that my mother got lucky, that it was just a coincidence that she won money so soon after spending all her money on someone else. But as a young impressionable boy, I believed then and l believe now that God used my mother’s generosity as a teaching moment for me. It was if God was saying, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
What are you striving for? May God grant you the grace to strive for God’s kingdom and righteousness today.
