I would like to refresh all your memories about blessing bags. I learned about them at City Lights over Spring Break last year. After learning about them I decided to make my own. I then told you all about given out my first blessing bag this summer and how that went.
Now I'll explain about giving out my 2nd blessing bag. This post is more of a confession of my honesty and heart about giving them away than actually about me giving it out. I still believe these blessing bags are awesome and it's really a great way for me to see where my heart actually is. Most of the time I really want to give them away to make myself feel better. I feel like helping people out is the right thing to do. Now this isn't exactly bad, but I do think that I do it more to give myself glory and feel better about myself than to bring God glory, which is the point of the bags in the first place. Having the opportunity to give a bag away also shows me how selfish I can be at times as well as how many excuses I can make to God.
I'll give you a little more insight into the situation. I had received a free Fazoli's meal that was good for only 2 days. I decided to use the coupon on the last day so as I was driving there I saw a man with a sign asking for money. I saw him and knew that I should give him a blessing bag. The first thought though was that I was in the wrong lane to do this and it was really busy so I couldn't easily turn around. Also the blessing bags were in my trunk so would not be easily accessible. I then decided that I was going to go to Fazoli's, get my food, get one of the bags from the trunk, put it in my car, then drive back by. Now you may remember these were my exact thoughts last time. Last time I luckily found the man after her left the spot by Target, so he still received one. As I was driving by I thought about this and still decided to drive by. {my excuse and also my selfishness as I just wanted to get to Fazoli's in a timely manner}
I went to Fazoli's and got my free spaghetti. As I was driving back to where the man was standing I thought about how I should realistically give this man this meal. I mean it was warm and fresh, not the random stuff in the bag that I honestly wouldn't probably want to eat for a meal. As I thought about this though I made some excuses to myself that he wouldn't want food that isn't really packaged already. I mean who would want something from someone that you don't exactly know where it's been. I mean this isn't Ethiopia where we would give our leftovers to people on the street. So I drove up to where he was standing and gave him the blessing bag. He seemed to appreciate it and said "God bless you."
I know that it was still very nice of me to give this man the bag, but I wonder how much happier he would have been if I would have listened better to God and the thoughts He was giving me and gave him both the Fazoli's meal and the blessing bag? That would have been me actually sacrificing something that I wanted. I wanted that meal so I didn't have to go back to the house and re-heat something. It wasn't like I didn't have food to eat or something. I was honestly just being lazy because I didn't think that I would like the leftovers that we had. How much more would this man have felt the love of God from me if I would have been more heartfelt in my gift to him? Instead of giving it to make myself feel better and like I am a better person for helping someone else out.
These are the questions that I've struggled to answer looking back on this experience. I think it's good and healthy that I'm examining where my heart was in the situation and trying to make improvements for the last 2 bags that I will hopefully be handing out soon. I want to challenge myself that right when I see someone with a sign I will pull over right there and give them the bag. I won't go on with what I need to do first and hope they are still there. I will also try to change my attitude to actually bless the person and not just try and make myself feel better. One small easy way for me to accomplish this is to make sure that I keep the bag actually in my car instead of my trunk. Having them in my trunk makes it so much easier for me to start up with excuses, which isn't good.
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