Hearts that are Opened to Give
Cultivating A Giving Heart
According to scripture (see below), God wants us to show His love with our deeds, not just our words.
It’s human nature to get caught up in life and forget to extend ourselves outside of our comfort zones.
When we get ourselves out of our minds and take the time to look at the needs around us, beautiful things can happen.
Apparently, plenty of Christians have been paying attention to the loss suffered by hundreds of thousands of people in the Texas-Louisiana area as a result of historic Hurricane Harvey.
The news crews are long gone, but families continue to face the day-to-day struggle of having lost absolutely everything they owned in the record-smashing flooding.
How People Are Helping
Helping Hands
The following are a few of many examples of what’s happening as of October 2017, though the hurricane hit in late August:
- 1000 volunteers from Austin, Texas, went to Port Arthur, where an estimated 30,000 homes are in need of repair. The volunteers went there to help rebuild the city. They did not go empty-handed. They brought seven semi-truckloads of supplies for the families in distress. Part of their plan is to go door-to-door and talk to families to learn specifics that are needed and offer assistance.
- Members of a church in California also reached out to the hurricane victims by sending stacks of handwritten messages with gift cards to people in Orange, Texas.
- A multi-state group from an organization called Samaritan’s Purse moved into a local church in Houston to stay for weeks, helping families rebuild at no cost. Church members are donating food and housing.
- Rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson gave his hefty first paycheck as an NFL player to three women who work in the Texans’ cafeteria; each of the three women is a Hurricane Harvey flood victim. The total given was $27,000, which is sure to go along way toward helping those families rebuild.
It’s sort of like the way Christmas is a season in which many people go the extra mile to give while forgetting about giving generously the rest of the year.
Outside of yuletide season, sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy to get us to dislodge ourselves from the pew or the couch and actually do something for others.
Hurricane Harvey’s devastation has motivated many thousands of people to roll up their sleeves and help, including neighbor helping neighbor. That’s a lot of open hearts.
“But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:17-18
