Good Saturday morning! Whew, I won't pretend to have all the answers on this one! The growing trend this year is cyberbegging. This comes from the many ads on E-Bay asking, perhaps I should say 'selling', donations through online auctions. Whatever the term, soliciting a donation for the family is for the most part made of similar stories of woe. No doubt many of them are legitimate, but we will of course see the opportunity for scam artists to post a fake story. This is certainly another symptom of the recession and the increased joblessness. But, do we donate money to someone we don't know in an unknown location? I don't expect these 'auctions' are going to work very well; there are too many con artists online. We want to help, but none of us wants to increase the take of a scammer or con artist.
So what about this help for the poor? We run into this every holiday season. We know that Jesus wants us to help feed the poor, but He never said anything about buying them I-Pods or the latest toy. The claim of 'donate so the kids can have a Christmas' kind of rankles me too. Christmas comes each year, with or without presents, and the receiving of gifts certainly isn't the main reason we celebrate Christ's birth. On the other hand, I like to give gifts and I'm sure you do as well. Giving is a good tradition that shouldn't be stopped if it does not interfere with the main reason for Christmas. God gave us His Son at Christmas, and we like to give what we can in our turn.
I would suggest we let E-bay be an auction site for stuff and do our donating elsewhere. Your local community will have many of the very same needs as those on the donation auctions. In Sidney, there is a tree in the courthouse with needy families. If I'm getting this right, you take an envelope and do your best to fulfill the needs as listed in the card. The Salvation Army is also in most areas of the country, as are church food banks. Of course, you might ask your pastor too. Many folks in need will come to a pastor before they go anywhere else for help. Churches that are able will have a fund or store of food to help out those in need.
I'll bet I can find a very similar devotional in the past couple of Christmas seasons. We do seem to get into this every year. Praise the Lord for all of you who do respond to the needs in your community and among all of us in Christ's church. We can demonstrate God's love for us in giving, but we also need to use our heads and eyes in this. Look around, unless you live in the Rich n' Easy Acres section of town the need is probably quite close to you. Pray for those raising funds for churches and charitable causes, I'm sure the recession has made their ministries quite difficult.
Have a wonderful and merry Christmas in Christ!
Bucky
No comments:
Post a Comment