Running on empty?

gas gauge emptyEver feel like you’re running dry? You know, a little ding breaks in on your reverie and it’s the low fuel light. Then you remember seeing a sign a couple minutes back that the next gas is 40 miles down the interstate? Just for example, not that this has ever happened to me!

It’s hard to love Muslims. Heck, it’s pretty hard to love people pretty much like you. Step across the divide of language, culture, religion and it gets tough, draining. The weight of our flesh and our culture lean heavily on us.

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m tired of caring for these people,” whoever “these” are for you, I get it. I’m with you. Actually, we’re all in this together. It’s hard. . . but there is some hope. (Tweet this.)

Paul asks his friends in I Corinthians 4.7, “What do you have that God hasn't given you?” It’s a humbling, but easy question, isn’t it? Nothing. So what we give to others, what we give to God, comes out of a storehouse of what we’ve been given.

If we’re tired and feel like we’ve nothing to give, we can ask for more. “Dad, I’m empty. I’m skint. Give me the love you want passed on to the people you’ve brought into my life.” It’s his project before it was ever ours, right?

The refill might not come instantly or simply. But remember with me that we can only give out what God has poured in. And be reminded with me, that this God we serve, oh man, is he rich and generous, loves his kids so much. And he is dead set on his purposes to bring life to all the families of the earth.

This article written by Shane Bennett and was originally published as a blog post. See the blog for contact information.

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