A Brother Like That

At Picnic Church in Chariton Sunday, Linda spoke about Jesus feeding 5000.

"Jesus always meets the needs of his followers," she said, then told the story of a young man whose brother gave him a very expensive car.

One day the young man was out polishing his car when a boy came by and asked the young man where he got such a nice car. The young man answered, “My brother gave it to me.”

As the boy began to reply, “Oh I wish …” the young man thought to himself, “Oh no. Here we go again. I’ve heard it so many times. ‘I wish I HAD a brother like that.’”

But to the young man’s surprise the neighbor boy said, “Oh I wish I COULD BE a brother like that.”

The neighbor boy wanted to be like the "generous" brother, not like the "lucky" one. He dreamed of giving lavishly.

Compare that attitude to the many other admirers of the car. They dreamed of living lavishly.

Even when our hearts are generous, we live in a world that for the most part is not genereous. So always we debate with ourselves: lavish giving or lavish living.