Give Recklessly

Here's something a friend from Ghana, Tommy Drinnen, wrote a little while back.

Salamatu is a young orphaned girl at the Village of Hope. She is in the 2nd grade (Class 2) and is just one of the most amazing little girls. She is a girl that cannot hide any emotion she is experiencing - it comes out all over her face and body. If she likes something she claps and jumps and screams - i love her passion. She received some stickers in the mail as a gift from someone - she was jumping up and down and so excited. Then she wrote a letter to the person saying thanks and on the letter put every sticker that she had received to decorate the letter nicely. She literally gave away her entire gift to say thank you.

Maybe that’s the answer...maybe that’s how we lead, how we live. We do not simply talk about or worship the center - we live the center - we live the cross - we give recklessly and passionately. I define "reckless" as behavior that causes people to say, "you're crazy, that is enough, stop now." And yet we go on. And we only make the distinctions that Jesus made - which, by the way, were none. He gave recklessly to those who got it and those who did not. He gave to those who deserved it, and those who did not. He gave to those who were accepted and those who were not. And in those acts of reckless giving, he revealed the center of it all.

Though Tommy is American pouring out his life in another land, these thoughts still plague him. How provoking this is for me and the way I deal inside my [selfish] little world!