A Little Give and Take

It was "color-up" time at the poker tables.  After one hour of play, the blinds were going up and chips with small denominations were no longer needed.  The players put them in stacks of 500 for exchanging.  In our case, a stack of "leftovers" had only 50 - two chips worth 25 each.

"You're not going to need that," a man across from us said.  He reached for one of our two chips, and added it to his collection.  This gave him a new "small stack" of 25, which would be "colored up" to 500 by the Tournament Director.

"I'd give one to you," the man explained.  And at this location, it probably would happen; we've seen it done for others before -- even to our benefit at times.  But this man had his own huge stack of chips, and he was nowhere close to going bankrupt.  So his reaching for our 25 left us stupefied for a moment.

Finally we figured out a way to respond.  "I guess the Christian in me will have to say yes."

A woman sitting to our left laughed at our comment.  But this allowed us to explain to her the thoughts rushing through our mind.

Giving and generosity should be major characteristics of a Christian.  Jesus said so:

Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. - Luke 6:38

But the man across the table did something different.  He took that 25 chip, under the presumption that we wouldn't mind.  He had the expectation of a gift.  Jesus had something to say about that attitude as well....

Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.  When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill." - John 6:24-26

This occurred a day or two after Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people (verses 5-13).  The Lord could see right through people's motives -- and He scolded members of the crowd who were "groupies" more than disciples, hoping to ride a "gravy train" of free food.

Let's be blunt here: to expect someone to give something to you is a rather selfish way of thinking.  From our own experience, we can compare it to beggars or panhandlers dreaming of a financial windfall by waiting outside a large Christian event.  We actually saw several people do that years ago outside a Billy Graham crusade.  We bought food for one -- but then we stopped.

(We have much more to say on this topic; look for that in a future post.)