In Small Ways
When she was struck by cancer, Elsie was prepared to go home to heaven to be with Jesus. But she recovered, though the disease left her immobile. It also left her wondering why God had spared her life. “What good can I do?” she asked Him. “I don’t have much money or skills, and I can’t walk. How can I be useful to You?”
Then she found small, simple ways to serve others, especially her home cleaners who were migrants. She bought them food or gave them a few dollars whenever she saw them. These cash gifts were small, yet they went a long way toward helping the workers make ends meet. As she did so, she found God providing for her: friends and relatives gave her gifts and money, enabling her to bless others in return.
As she shared her story, I couldn’t help but think of how Elsie was truly putting into practice the call to love one another in 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us” as well as the truth of Acts 20:35, which reminds us that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Elsie gave because she received and was in turn encouraged as she gave. Yet it took little more from her than a loving, grateful heart and a readiness to offer what she had—which God multiplied in a virtuous circle of giving and receiving. Let’s ask Him to give us a thankful and generous heart to give as He leads us!
By Leslie Koh - Daily Bread Ministries
1 John 4:7–12; 19-21 (NIV):
God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
