October 22, 2004

[Rev. Doc]

Satisfied

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."
Psalm 103:2-5

A man shared that despite having to work 2 jobs that bring in approximately $2500.00 per month, he's quite happy. Many might wonder how anyone could be happy considering he has to skimp with everything because of his low pay. He's supporting his parents, his in-laws, his wife, 2 daughters and the many bills his large household accrues.

He explained that his reasoning was caused by one incident that he'd seen in India. It had happened a couple of years before he'd married when he was feeling very low, after a major setback, while touring India. He said that right in front of his very eyes, he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand. The hopelessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old has haunted him, ever since.

You may ask why did the mother do so? Had the child been naughty? Had the child's hand been infected? No, it was done for two simple words - -- TO BEG!!! The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken back by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating and almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread, covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. How could hunger and desperation be allowed to fester like this?

Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to get a truck and to drive him to the nearest bakery. He went to two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found. The owners were dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $200.00 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than .50 per loaf) and then spent about $100.00 to get other daily necessities.

Off he went with his bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children and adults (mostly handicapped) he received cheers and bows. For the first time in his life he wondered how people would do almost anything for a loaf of bread which cost less than 50 CENTS.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he was. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain about what food is good and what isn't, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of.....

At what point are we satisfied in life?

Prayer: Ask God to help you not to take His many blessings in your life for granted, but to be continually thankful and watchful for ways to help others around you.

"Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
~C.S. Lewis.