REFLECTIONS
July 25, 2010, from the archives of August 5, 2007
 
 
Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number,
He calls them all by name
Isaiah 40:26
 
 
God’s Children
 
We laughed when we saw the old hillbilly sitting on his front porch dressed in his bib-overalls and a worn-out straw hat sitting crooked on his head. We were laughing because his life was so different from ours. We assumed that his education level was limited and that his perspective of life was sheltered from the vastness that we knew the world to be. The old hillbilly may have seemed different to us but we were also quick to observe that he is one of God’s children. And all of God’s children are precious.
My friend Ron may have reminded us that, “God doesn’t make junk.” When we see trash on the roadsides, discover weeds in our garden, and find wrecked cars stacked in salvage yards, we have some caretaking to do. And when we see castoff people seeking survival underneath bridges and children born with mental challenges, we have some caretaking to do. God did not make us perfect, but neither did He make us junk.
God gave us responsibility for taking care of the world He created. He gave us “dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds in the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28) When we see imperfections, it means that we have some caretaking to do. We remove trash from our roadsides, weeds from our gardens, and we recycle wrecked cars from salvage yards as a part of caring for the domain that God assigned us. And when we find people surviving underneath bridges or children with mental challenges, we need to care for them too.
Hard times fall on people everyday and everyday children are born with mental or emotional disabilities. These people may be different, but God didn’t make them junk. These people are God’s children and for them we have some caretaking to do. As part of our responsibility for every living thing, we are to take care of the needy and the underprivileged. Jesus called it loving your neighbor as yourself.
Although many of us are not gifted caregivers, we all are blessed with abilities to serve those in need. Whether our giftedness is our time, our money, or our influence, we are all called to use our gifts to care for every living thing in our Father’s world. No matter the differences, we are all God’s children.
And all of God’s children are precious.
 
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard Ì

www.reflectingthesavior.org.


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