Meditations

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28

“In mature materiality it will be useful to trace the crisis of scarcity/abundance all through the process from farm to table. First, we may consider processes of food production around the question of scarcity and abundance. This issue comes down to a contrast between the family farm and industrial agriculture.

It is not romantic to notice that food locally grown on family farms or through local gardening efforts sustained society for a long time. The industrial revolution, however, introduced more advanced technology and larger farm equipment that made it possible (and necessary?) for a single farmer to manage larger farming tracts.

But of course, investment in more costly equipment made it necessary to maximize production, and the maximization of production required the purchase of more acreage that in turn displaced the family farm. Production was further advanced by chemical fertilizers and by food cartels that control farm production through contractual arrangements and that have no interest in the farm, the land, the farmer, or even the quality of the food.

The illusion of industrial agriculture is that such production could feed the world and indeed must feed the world, because the harvest of local efforts is taken to be too modest and therefore ineffective. The outcome is food that is “bechemicaled” (what a marvelous word!).”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 32.

I grew up in Ohio and my family ran Hoag’s Greenhouses for 82 years. We grew tomatoes and cucumbers in a hot house or greenhouse setting. People would drive for miles to come buy our tomatoes and cucumbers for the quality of the flavor and because we used organic growing methods rather than chemicals.

Along with most growers, we previously used chemicals, as experts told us too. But I recall switching to more organic methods to care for the soil and increase quality and yield. We implemented nutrient feeding, drip irrigation, and even released “hit bugs” to eat the white flies rather than spraying dangerous pesticides.

Why write about the bechemicaled nature of food production today in contrast to farm to table production? Our first task as steward relates to creation, and we are killing. World authority in organic plant protection, Dr. Milan Hluchý of Czech Republic has taught me that if we kill it with poisons we destroy ourselves and any hope future generations.

Generosity comes into view as creation care. Pause and ask yourself: What patterns in my purchasing and my stewardship can avoid polluting and poisoning God’s creation?

Work is going well in Nepal. We have sensed many spiritual attacks so please keep our team in your prayers. Today’s an historic day. We host the accountability event with influential Christian workers from every province in the nation. We pray to activate a working group to bring peer accountability to Nepal.

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp… When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat… I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel… They asked, and [God] brought quails and gave them food from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. Exodus 16:13, 15; 17:6; Psalm 105:40–41

“It will be useful, in mature materiality, to reflect on the compelling power of the narrative of scarcity. For many in the “clean plate club,” eating is required because of “starving children in Africa.” Beyond that, however, is the relentless insistence of consumerism that we are entitled (because we are Americans) to have more and own more and eat more.

The ideology of consumerism intends both (a) to affirm the legitimacy of satiation and (b) to attest that we do not yet have enough to be satiated and must still secure (purchase) the next offer of satiation. The hope of mature materiality is that we may be disengaged from and resistant to that distortion of reality.

The ground for such disengagement and resistance is rooted in trust in the creator God and the generativity of God’s creation that is the primary story line of the Bible. That biblical story line has its pivot point in the narrative of wondrous manna in Exodus 16
.
In that narrative Israel is in the wilderness, cut off from the food supply of Pharaoh. Very quickly the newly departed slaves, in their anxiety, yearn for Pharaoh’s food supply. In the wilderness there are no obvious life-support systems. In that very place that seems utterly bereft, however, bread is given . . . and meat . . . and water, all the necessities for life!”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 31.

The new header photo features Kathmandu. I am here for historic GTP meetings with representatives of the various Christian alliances along with many skilled lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. Today, they travel from the 7 provinces to this city. Tomorrow is the big meeting. Appreciate your prayers.

And no I cannot see Mt. Everest. This is the rainy season so there are many clouds. It’s okay. I am looking to a different mountain for help. My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.

I find it brilliant that Brueggemann starts with “the compelling power of the narrative of scarcity” when most Christians start with the reality of God’s abundance. Why? I have found as both a biblical scholar and Christ follower that I don’t find myself in Scripture or society unless I look at the bad examples and wrong thinking.

The narrative of scarcity guides the unbridled consumerism and accumulation in modern American society. It says, “You have to look out for number one.” Between the lines this thinking says, “There is no generous God looking out for you.”

Then Brueggemann moves us to the manna story. I love the manna story of the Old Testament. When we read the manna story alongside the Lord’s Prayer we discover that the God who invites us to trust Him for daily bread has a track record of trustworthiness.

Ponder the sinfulness of the scarcity mindset and the patterns it causes us to embrace. Ask the Holy Spirit what needs to change to grow in trust in God’s abundance. Ironically, the antidote to the gluttony and greed – patterns linked to scarcity and promoted in society – is generosity. Giving helps disengage. How might you grow your giving today?

[Jesus] said to His disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, you of little faith! And do not keep seeking what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Luke 12:22-31

“In the Gospel of Luke, the parable of Jesus in Luke 12:13-21 revolves around a warning against greed that is then expanded by the instruction Jesus gives to His disciples in the next paragraph (vv. 22–31). Jesus offers a contrast to the practice of scarcity for His disciples who are invited to God’s abundance. He witnesses to a trustworthy abundance that gives the lie to the scarcity imagined by the farmer in the parable. He summons His disciples out of the narrative of scarcity and into his alternative narrative of abundance. That abundance, Jesus attests, is grounded in the generative capacity of the creator God who supplies adequate food for birds, for lilies, and for those who “strive for God’s kingdom” (v. 31), that is, a realm of justice, righteousness, and mercy. Thus the work of mature materiality concerning food is to move our mindfulness away from an imagined scarcity that evokes excessive accumulation and satiation to a trustworthy abundance that permits us to be free of worry about what we shall eat (v. 22).”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 31.

I traveled from India to Nepal yesterday. I am safely here for GTP program work to activate a an accountability and generosity movement with meetings in Kathmandu and Pokhara now through 10 September 2025 .

I just love that right after the rich fool narrative Jesus reminds us not to worry.

Our Father in heaven has the “generative capacity” to meet the needs of every bird, nourish every flower, and sustain every human on planet earth. We get to either place our trust Him or in ourselves.

In Him we can count on “a trustworthy abundance that permits us to be free of worry about what we shall eat.”

Just sit in that truth for a while. Marinate in the reality.

I got news whilst traveling that my dad has prostate cancer. I’d appreciate your prayers for him. I don’t know many details but with the news my mom urged me to keep my trip plans. Hang in there, dad. Keep looking up.

I give thanks for my mom and dad who taught me not to worry about anything but to pray about everything.

Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” Luke 12:13-21

“Nothing in our lives is more immediate and constant than the requirement of food. Food is the most specific materiality that is before us daily. For that reason, mature materiality must address it and invite critical reflection on food. In the first instant, the concern is to eat “real food” that nourishes, to eat with mindfulness and restraint, and to maintain good weight and bodily health through food choices and exercise. That must be a major agenda in a society beset by junk food, eating disorders, disordered eating, and obesity. Beneath that immediate concern about food, however, our deeper difficult question pivots around the issue of scarcity and abundance. That matter is made central in the parable of Luke 12:13–21. Jesus’ story portrays a rich man, a rich farmer who specialized in accumulation, who strategized to store up more and more food (grain) because in his anxiety he imagined he did not have enough yet. His appetite for more grain became insatiable. And his insatiability turned out to be lethal for him; he died in his “foolishness.” He was a victim of imagined scarcity. He believed there was not enough, so he had to secure for himself much more than enough.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 30.

With the proliferation of cancers, I appreciate Brueggemann’s call to eat real food that nourishes rather than processed food or junk food that seems to accelerate health challenges and even diseases.

But I love that he went deeper to address the insatiability issue. The fact that the farmer has the label ‘rich man’ implies he has more than enough. That’s what rich means in the biblical narrative, you have more than enough.

So, what should the farmer do with the surplus?

As a “victim of imagined scarcity” which riddles a person with insatiability, he keeps it for himself. His foolish failure to share costs him his life. And he misses the privilege of sharing, a task which God will see to without him.

Where do you see yourself in this picture?

Do you eat real food to show generosity toward your body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit to care for it, so you can serve God for a long time. Or do you feed on junk food, or have disordered eating, or weigh in with obesity?

And since most of us are not farmers, what do you do with your surplus. If accumulation is your answer, then I suggest you rethink your strategy before God chooses someone else to redistribute that which is perishable.

As I think about my dear wife at home tending our garden whilst I travel, I think of the abundance of vegetables.

Imagine how silly it would be if our garden produced hundreds of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, and other vegetables. Not only would it rot, we would miss out on the joy of sharing generously with our neighbors.

God’s people do well to think about money in precisely the same way as garden vegetables.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. 1 Timothy 6:10

“This triad of earning, saving, and giving may lead to a repositioning of the monetized self in a network of neighborliness as a contributing member of the community. These three foci help us to see that our society’s dominant narrative of money believes, against Christian materiality: Earning is all for the self with an endless accumulation. Saving is a private enterprise designed to enhance the autonomous self. Giving is likely to be parsimonious and erratic. Mature materiality summons us to a radical relocation of the self that includes a departure from the usual assumptions of our society concerning money.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 27.

This summary statement by Brueggemann captures everything in his chapter on money. More importantly, it summarizes the departure we need to make from the warld’s way of handling money.

The world leads us to rationalize the pursuit of endless accumulation, the enhancement of the autonomous self, and parsimonious and erratic giving at best. God wants more for us.

God’s Word calls us to a radical relocation of the self and a departure from these assumptions. That’s why Jesus speaks so explicitly about where (and where not) to store up treasure.

This reading is so powerful we can only sit with the Holy Spirit and wonder. How has the world tricked me into putting self rather than God at the center. Ask God to show you one step to take.

And while you take that step, know that my week in India has been deeply impactful. It’s been a privilege to shake and wake the India and Sri Lanka missions movement to radical shift toward faithful stewardship.

Many voices in the conference have echoed the call to bring order and oversight as the pathway for strengthening capacities to reach the unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. Deuteronomy 15:7

“When we join our commitment to place to our management of money, it follows that monetary investment and expenditure should be focused locally to serve the neighborhood economy. It is crucial to “keep the money at home.” Such a commitment tilts against unrestrained engagement with big-box stores and merchandising chains (notably those online) that intend to move the money out of the neighborhood. (An easy case to cite is the choice of a local bookstore over against the “convenience” of Amazon; extracting money from the local economy is characteristically “convenient”!) Keeping money local is an important ingredient in mature materiality.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 26.

Let me explain the significance of this from India and why I wish people would stop sending money over here with maybe two exceptions.

First, I hear story after story of India ministry workers who say, why raise funds locally when it’s easier just to ask an American to make a gift. Secondly, Americans send money overseas thinking trying to solve problems, and they hinder the people here from doing the work of putting to use what they have.

Then I hear American’s complaining that they don’t like the trajectory of the morality of their local society. All the more reason to give where you live.

So what should cross-border giving look like? If you give to help them build capacity, it turns dependency to discipleship. I am all for that.

Or supporting workers like GTP to go into hard places not with handouts but with help in the form of training and coaching, to teach them to use what they have and not just call America when they have a need.

I am neither saying to cancel your Amazon subscription nor to quit giving overseas. I am saying to understand the impact of your buying and your giving on the world in which we live.

Our giving and living decisions shape the local society. What do you want your world to look like?

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31

“Responsible Christian materiality has a great stake in the public good, the arena of neighborliness. Investment in the common good most often takes the form of tax payment. In a society of individual competitiveness, taxes are seen as a pernicious intrusion into one’s monetized freedom that must be vigorously resisted and minimized. Such resistance is nothing less than a retreat from the common good.

In Christian materiality, the payment of taxes is a form of giving back to the community that may be welcomed. Of course not all taxes are good or welcome. Some are ignoble and indeed are pernicious. Responsible materiality requires advocacy for good taxes that enhance the common good. These might include better funding for public schools, improved infrastructure that is available to all, and provision for essential food and housing.

The need for good taxation in responsible materiality is underscored by Arianna Huffington’s observation that it is “much easier” to raise money for “the opera and fashionable museums than for at-risk children. . . . The task of overcoming poverty will not be achieved without the raw power of government appropriations.” Christian materiality does not shrink from the raw power of government and advocates its mobilization in the service of the common good. This form of giving is not only an act of generosity; it is also an act of good citizenship, even patriotism!”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 26.

Today I want to ask a question. If you look at your giving, how do you see neighborliness? It’s really up to you to answer. Many followers of Christ tend to do well to give to God, but not even know their neighbor’s name.

For us, it starts with learning their names, then sharing our lives, our pickles, and lately, even pesto. From there we can have conversations, help them in time of need, and share our Christian faith when the opportunity comes up.

I still swim in the shallow end of generosity in the neighborliness area, perhaps because I travel so much. But it’s good to think and pray about how our giving shows love for God and neighbor, and follow the leading of the spirit to grow.

Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. 1 Corinthians 16:1-4

“In contemporary society we are very much prone to ad hoc practices of generosity (such as crowdfunding) in response to specific identifiable crises of need. That generosity is all to the good. It is, however, not sufficient for responsible
materiality. Beyond ad hoc acts of giving, mature generosity requires planned, regular, disciplined budgeting for sustained giving. Such intentionality makes it possible not only to respond to dramatic crises but also to provide sustained support for social institutions upon which community health depends. The amount of such giving is flexible. We may note, however, that the notion of a 10 percent tithe of income is not a maximum; it is a baseline against which we may reckon our measure of generosity. Obviously the more we practice the restraints indicated above, the more we are able to maximize our generosity in a way commensurate with our gratitude.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 25-26.

I loved every word here, especially the ending: “maximize our generosity in a way commensurate with our gratitude.” Responsible materiality requires diligent planning. It starts with a baseline. But the grows from there.

And the growth links to gratitude. As we find joy and life we increase our sharing. God supplies and it goes from there. So what is the role of “crowdfunding” per se. I think it’s the on-ramp for new people to join in giving.

And the apostle Paul provides a good example of this. Notice how he does a crowdfunding project called the Jerusalem Collection. But he gives instructions with it so they learn to do the diligent planning..

If you serve with a church or ministry, do crowdfunding projects to get everyone giving. Couple it with instructions to help everyone set a baseline and grow in diligent planning.

People will not become generous overnight. Your job is to teach them maximize our generosity in a way commensurate with our gratitude. The generosity will flow when you move beyond collecting gifts to growing givers.

I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach different teachings and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training [literally, οἰκονομίαν θεοῦ or the economy of God} that is known by faith. But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. 1 Timothy 1:3-5

“Responsible materiality depends upon glad generosity that is grounded in deep gratitude for the gift of life in all its abundance. In a society of competition among individuals for scarce goods, the pressure to get ahead is without restraint.

But responsible materiality does not inhabit a world of scarce goods. Rather it resides in a creation of God’s good abundance. Thus, responsible materiality is exactly a contradiction to the impulse for competitive accumulation. The ground for generosity is the awareness that the world is funded by a generous, active God who has made creation as a gift that keeps on giving, and that we are on the receiving end of that endless gift-giving!

Thus we need not and cannot imagine that we are self-made or self-sufficient. Nor does it follow that “I made my money and it belongs to me.” Responsible materiality recognizes that we are each and all embedded in a life-giving network, and we are permitted the glorious chance to be full participants in and contributors to that life-giving network.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 24-25.

Competition to accumulate puts people on a path that causes them to miss out on life. And the operating system of this way of living is fueled by scarcity thinking. People step on each other to get ahead and they never have enough.

Because responsible materiality functions in God’s abundant economy and represents a life-giving network, we get the opposite. It’s a contradiction that puts us in a place where we realize only by living obediently do we always have enough.

Hear that again. I will put it plain and simple. Competition and scarcity lead to death and never having enough. Contradiction and abundance lead to life and we always have enough. The right path is only “known by faith.”

I stumbled on this idea of life-giving network or abundant economy of all things in my doctoral work related to Ephesus, 1 Timothy, and Ephesians. The idea of God’s economy appears in today’s Scripture.

And in Ephesians 1:7-10 it says that the One that brings this life-giving economy together is Christ. And in Ephesians 3:8-12 it tells us that the church is God’s channel for making known his economy or this life-giving network.

Furthermore, 1 Timothy 6:17-19 teaches us that the enjoyment and sharing of resources is the pathway to grasping this life. We only figure it out as we live it out. Again, the life-giving path, the only right way is “known by faith.”

All that said, responsible materiality and rich Christian generosity simply cannot happen in a world of competitive accumulation. No wonder Jesus is so explicit about where he wants us to store treasure. We only find life in obedience.

We can do this. God’s got us.

When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this. Deuteronomy 24:19-22

“A responsible practice of materiality might consider two other dimensions of saving. First, save the earth as our natural habitat. The earth is now being wasted and devastated by our industrial practice of excessive fossil-energy use coupled with a throwaway attitude toward consumer products. Mature materiality will usefully take a plunge into the inimitable work of Wendell Berry, our great apostle of frugality:

“We have only one choice. We must either properly care for all of it [nature] or continue our lethal damage to all of it. In the age of industrialism, this relationship [of mutuality between nature and human beings] has been radically brought down to a pair of hopeless assumptions: that the natural world is passively subject either to unlimited pillage as a “natural resource,” or to partial and selective protection as “the environment.”

We must achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do. We are going to have to learn to give up things that we have learned (in only a few years, after all) to “need.” It is surely the duty of the older generation to be embarrassingly old-fashioned.”

Such a saving is not storing up for one’s self; it is rather saving in a way that articulates our lives as a part of a larger web of creaturely life to which we may contribute. The great decision for materiality is to be a contributor to creaturely well-being or to be a user who diminishes and exhausts our common creatureliness.

Second, our mandate to “save all you can” means to save our neighbors. In the Bible the “quadrilateral of vulnerability” includes widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor (see Deut. 24:19–22), all those who have no standing or leverage in a predatory patriarchal economy. Such saving would entail sustained acts of charity whereby the disadvantaged share in the wealth and property of the community.

Ownership is everything! Beyond charity, however, the great marker of saving the neighbor in the Bible concerns the regular cancellation of debt, and that in a society that willfully creates a debtor class in order to ensure a pool of cheap labor! Thus Moses provides for a periodic cancellation of debt in the “year of remission” (Deut. 15:1–18) and a restoration of lost property in the practice of Jubilee (Lev. 25).

The Lord’s Prayer, the one that Christians pray most habitually, has at its center a petition for debt forgiveness: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). The intent of these provisions is to preclude the formation of a permanent poverty class and to permit the disadvantaged to participate in a viable economic life. Clearly “save all you can” draws energy away from a simple private accumulation of money to a wise deployment of money for the sake of the
neighborhood and for a neighborly creation.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 24-25.

Brueggemann has used the famous statement from John Wesley, “Gain all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can” as his outline for engaging the topic of money with a lens of materiality. Today’s focus is saving.

I have taken my stewardship more seriously linked to creation care after two things happened in my life. I met Dr. Milan Hluchy, and I became a grandfather.

Dr. Hluchy of Czech Republic is a world authority in organic plant protection. He cares about the healthy ecology for plants and I work with GTP to advance the healthy ecology of churches and ministries.

His work has caused the same number of hectares (think: acres only bigger) of grapes in Czech Republic to increase both yield and quality by ceasing all use of pesticides.

The President of Czech Republic seeks his counsel for all agriculture in the country. The European Union wants his advice for many nations. And on two trips to Ukraine during the war, we have serve in the war zone and met with the top agriculture figures in the nation.

What’s my point? If we do any saving, we need to care for creation and care for the quadrilateral of vulnerability that God cares about throughout the Old and New Testaments: widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor.

Most Americans save to care for themselves and have rationalized so much disobedience they don’t know right from wrong with regard to money and faithful stewardship..

As I have arrived in India I see a world filled with an overabundance of people and unspeakable pollution. The needs of the quadrilateral stand out even more dramatically.

I shot the new header photo from Conquerors Software Technology where I had strategic meetings today regarding possible technology services. This view features a rare stretch of green space to “Cyber Towers” in the Silicon Valley area of Hyderabad.

Whether in America, India, or elsewhere, most people seem to focus on how they care for themselves.

Regarding saving, I always go to what my mentor and friend John Stanley has taught me. Saving is simply creating margin. We need margin in our finances and our schedules to show our love for God and neighbor.

Without margin, there’s no hope for creation (we trash the place) and the quadrilateral of vulnerability (we have no time and resources for those less fortunate).

When we were less fortunate, God sent Jesus to sort our sin problem. And He’s commissioned us to serve as His hands and feet. Will we? The future of the widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor depends on the choices we make.