Rich Toward God
Illustration
Stories
Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? (v. 5)
Ann Landers received a letter from a woman in Bismarck, North Dakota, who wrote about her Aunt Emma, a beautifully warm-hearted woman who was married to a tightwad (who was also a little strange). He made a good salary, but they lived frugally because he insisted on putting 20 percent of his paycheck under the mattress. (The man didn't trust banks.) The money, he said, was going to come in handy in their old age.
When Uncle Ollie was sixty, he was stricken with cancer. Toward the end, he made Aunt Em promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would put the money he had stashed away in his coffin so he could buy his way into heaven if he had to. They all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. Aunt Em did promise, however, and assured Uncle Ollie's brothers that she was a woman of her word and would do as he asked. The following morning she took the money (about $26,000) to the bank and deposited it. She then wrote a check and put it in her husband's casket four days later.
Most of us Americans have more stuff, more clothes, more properties, more automobiles, trucks, SUVs, boats, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, jet skis, planes, hang-gliders, campers, RVs, scuba gear, motorcycles... (did I leave anything out?) ...more grown-up toys than we know what to do with. In fact, sometimes all of this stuff we own can become a burden. It takes time and energy to take care of it all. After a while, we begin to feel like our stuff owns us.
"Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." That which is most valuable in our lives is eternal. It cannot be bought or sold, worn, consumed, or taken for a joy ride. Ask someone whose house just burned down. Almost always you will hear "I'm just glad everyone got out alive. That's all that matters."
These kind of experiences put the "eat, drink, and be merry" times of our lives into perspective and prepare us for the life to come, where, as Jesus says, what matters is not the treasures we have stored up for ourselves on earth but being "rich toward God."
Oseola McCarty was rich toward God. Oseola McCarty was a retired washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who made the national news in 1995 when she donated all of her life savings to the University of Southern Mississippi (that's where Green Bay Packer great, Brett Favre, played college football).
Oseola McCarty spent a lifetime making other people look nice. Day after day, for most of her 87 years, she took in bundles of dirty clothes and made them clean and neat for parties she never attended, weddings to which she was never invited, graduations she never saw.
She had quit school in the sixth grade to go to work, never married, never had children, and never learned to drive because there was never any place in particular she wanted to go. All she ever had was the work, which she saw as a blessing. Too many other black people in rural Mississippi did not have even that.
She spent almost nothing, living in her old family home, cutting the toes out of shoes if they did not fit right, and binding her ragged Bible with scotch tape to keep Corinthians from falling out. Over the decades, her pay — mostly dollar bills and change — grew to more than $150,000. "More than I could ever use," Miss McCarty said the other day without a trace of self-pity. So she is giving her money away, to finance scholarships for black students at the University of Southern Mississippi in her hometown, where tuition at that time was $2,400 a year.
Ann Landers received a letter from a woman in Bismarck, North Dakota, who wrote about her Aunt Emma, a beautifully warm-hearted woman who was married to a tightwad (who was also a little strange). He made a good salary, but they lived frugally because he insisted on putting 20 percent of his paycheck under the mattress. (The man didn't trust banks.) The money, he said, was going to come in handy in their old age.
When Uncle Ollie was sixty, he was stricken with cancer. Toward the end, he made Aunt Em promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would put the money he had stashed away in his coffin so he could buy his way into heaven if he had to. They all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. Aunt Em did promise, however, and assured Uncle Ollie's brothers that she was a woman of her word and would do as he asked. The following morning she took the money (about $26,000) to the bank and deposited it. She then wrote a check and put it in her husband's casket four days later.
Most of us Americans have more stuff, more clothes, more properties, more automobiles, trucks, SUVs, boats, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, jet skis, planes, hang-gliders, campers, RVs, scuba gear, motorcycles... (did I leave anything out?) ...more grown-up toys than we know what to do with. In fact, sometimes all of this stuff we own can become a burden. It takes time and energy to take care of it all. After a while, we begin to feel like our stuff owns us.
"Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." That which is most valuable in our lives is eternal. It cannot be bought or sold, worn, consumed, or taken for a joy ride. Ask someone whose house just burned down. Almost always you will hear "I'm just glad everyone got out alive. That's all that matters."
These kind of experiences put the "eat, drink, and be merry" times of our lives into perspective and prepare us for the life to come, where, as Jesus says, what matters is not the treasures we have stored up for ourselves on earth but being "rich toward God."
Oseola McCarty was rich toward God. Oseola McCarty was a retired washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who made the national news in 1995 when she donated all of her life savings to the University of Southern Mississippi (that's where Green Bay Packer great, Brett Favre, played college football).
Oseola McCarty spent a lifetime making other people look nice. Day after day, for most of her 87 years, she took in bundles of dirty clothes and made them clean and neat for parties she never attended, weddings to which she was never invited, graduations she never saw.
She had quit school in the sixth grade to go to work, never married, never had children, and never learned to drive because there was never any place in particular she wanted to go. All she ever had was the work, which she saw as a blessing. Too many other black people in rural Mississippi did not have even that.
She spent almost nothing, living in her old family home, cutting the toes out of shoes if they did not fit right, and binding her ragged Bible with scotch tape to keep Corinthians from falling out. Over the decades, her pay — mostly dollar bills and change — grew to more than $150,000. "More than I could ever use," Miss McCarty said the other day without a trace of self-pity. So she is giving her money away, to finance scholarships for black students at the University of Southern Mississippi in her hometown, where tuition at that time was $2,400 a year.
