The Extreme Home Makeover show crew is coming to Erie this week to bless a local family with a home makeover. I have to say that I'm not much of a fan of the show because the practicality in me says that they could help many more people if they were a lot less 'extreme' with the makeovers. I always wonder how the families who receive those extravagant homes are able to maintain them after the show is over.
And when you've watched a Jamaican mother with three children cry for joy because you built her a 10 foot by 10 foot one room home, it's hard to keep a positive perspective on the TV show.
Still, I know that Jesus is moved by extreme generosity; after all, He is the ultimate giver. It's just that He sees who is truly generous and we often don't.
I imagine if there had been TV cameras in Jesus' day they would have been filming the public good deeds of some lavish building program. But over there in an obscure corner of the temple Jesus was watching a widow give two very small coins--all that she had. No one else even noticed her but Jesus memorialized her extreme generosity forever and we can still read about it in Luke 21.
I think about that when it comes to Operation Christmas Child. I think about Rose, a woman of modest means who attends a very small church. That little congregation has banded together to collect and recycle aluminum to fund their shoe box packing and last year Rose led them in packing 342 gift-filled shoe boxes to show God's love to needy children. No TV cameras filmed them, but I know that Jesus noticed. And Jesus notices the person who packs one shoe box with extreme sacrifice.
God, I want so much to learn how to be extremely generous. Show me how to give until there's no more left.
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