Unable to sleep one night, I picked up a book from the stack of stewardship books I keep beside my bed and started reading. I came across a sentence that really caught my attention. “The foundation of all charity is the discernment that you, as an individual or as a congregation, have something of inestimable value that gives you hope for tomorrow and provides you with the confidence not to commit suicide tonight.”
Hope for tomorrow. We seem to be very short on hope lately. People are motivated, the book said, by these questions: Do we have a faith worth sharing? Is there a spiritual leader worth following? The sentences following the one I just quoted said, “If you share it (hope for tomorrow) you can give abundant life away to another person, and if you withhold it you risk abandoning another person to cruel fate …True charity is not about financially supporting a program, but trusting credible leaders to share the secret of abundant life with others and empower them to enjoy it.
The book is Beyond the Collection Plate by Michael Durall and the introduction I quoted is by Thomas G. Bandy.
Marilyn Good
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