August 24, 2009

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Proverbs 3:27

Kurt Repanshek, writing for the travel site frommers.com, offers a glimpse into how the money allotted to the National Park Service through the federal economic stimulus program is being spent. Some improvements will be visible to visitors—the repaving in Acadia, and new restrooms and road repairs at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example—while other work will be more behind the scenes, such as the upgrade to Yellowstone’s park headquarters’ heating system.

“All told across the National Park System there are nearly 800 projects that are being financed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Kurt reports. “True, the $750 million earmarked for this work pales in comparison to the roughly $8 billion-$9 billion maintenance backlog that confronts the National Park Service, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

When I read this article last week, I thought of a recent conversation I had with my friend Shari.  She was recalling the time several years ago when her family had been going through a rough patch financially, specifically a day at the supermarket when her young daughter desperately wanted Oreos. “Sorry babe, we can’t afford it,” she had to tell her, which just about broke Shari’s heart.

But when they arrived back home, they discovered several bags of groceries had been left on their front steps. And right on top of one of them was a package of Oreos. Her daughter was so excited that she danced on the front lawn.

Shari still doesn’t know who left the food, but she is sure of one thing: it was God who prompted the donor to include a specific brand of chocolate sandwich cookies, just for her little girl.

Whether that anonymous giver was a Christian is uncertain. But Scripture is clear that good deeds, while not the basis for faith, are a natural extension of it: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

As far as those good deeds go, the book of Titus encourages us to be an example of, zealous for, and careful to engage in them (2:7,14; 3:8). Galatians 6:10 tells us to do good to all when we have the opportunity, especially toward our fellow believers. And Matthew 6:3 and 4 remind us that our acts perhaps are best done in secret.

If we Christians took these admonitions seriously, I wonder how our communities and churches would be transformed.

Let’s give it a try. Let’s “consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24).

Because somebody nearby really needs an Oreo today.