Right after handing Uncle Ming the $100, I started to regret it. The elderly man who hung around our neighborhood looked poor, so I thought I’d give him a little something. When I noticed he had several bills in his wallet, I thought, Hey, he’s not so poor after all! Did I just waste my money?
As I was beginning to feel regret, he remarked: “Thank you for this! Now I can help our estate cleaner support his family. He earns so little!”
His words put me to shame. While I was fretting over the prudency of helping him, Uncle Ming—who didn’t have that much himself—was ready to help others with similar or greater needs. As the apostle Peter reminds us: “God has given each of [us] a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.” Ming was showing what it truly meant to take our gifts and “use them well to serve one another” (1 Peter 4:10).
Then it struck me that Uncle Ming’s generosity and compassion was also multiplying my gift to him. Despite my overly pragmatic approach towards giving, God in His grace was enabling me to help others through the elderly man. Through Uncle Ming, I could help others I didn’t even know. Our loving God provides for those in need, sometimes in amazing, mysterious ways. May we be His obedient channel of giving out of love (v. 8) and trust Him to multiply our gifts.
