Activity

Spiritual Ideas

Ralph, recently homeless, was walking in a park looking for more wood to build his hapless shelter. A man with a big smile walked up to him.

“Hi, I’m Charlie, do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure.”

“I am on my way home right now, but I wanted to give you this tract,” he said, as he handed him a small folded piece of paper. “I will be back here Tuesday, so if you like what you read we can talk then.” Then he reached into his bag, “I have been passing out sandwiches, here is one for you.”

“Oh, thank you, I could eat a horse,” Ralph said.

After Charlie left, Ralph opened the tract. It read:

James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

The tract ended by saying, “Dedicate your life to Christ today, these verses are true.

Ralph thought, wow “wanting nothing.” I will try this. He prayed, “Father, I dedicate my life to you.”

An hour later he resumed his search for wood. Then he hit the jackpot. A beautiful tarp with no holes, to cover his new shelter. Wow, he thought. This Christianity is a good deal. Just as he had the tarp in place, a huge storm began.

The next morning he woke up early because his feet were soaked. The tarp had shifted. Angrily he threw the tract away. “I knew that this was too good to be true,” he said out loud.

The end.

Many churches will gloss over this “wanting nothing.” Why? Because it is very hard to understand. The Bible is written with the assumption that Christians are fully dedicated to things like purity, purpose, being in God’s will, and other things. When we are fully dedicated to these things, this verse will be fully true for us. Consider praying:

“Father, show me what I need to be more dedicated to.”

Because when we are partially dedicated this verse gets confusing. Most of us make it a lot longer than Ralph when the verse does not work out the way we want it to. But then, we start to lose faith just like he did.

But I say… instead, we should just believe the verses, keep being more and more dedicated, keep studying them, keep praying over them, and just see if the power of scripture helps us learn how to overcome yet again. Then see if the power of scripture starts teaching us to live in a way that leads to joy.