November 17, 2014

Give & Take

Adventist Life

So I’m in line at the store, and the credit card of the woman in front of me is declined: The cashier started taking things out of her bags. I think: WWJD? The woman was only buying a few groceries, so I told her, “Put those back; I got it.”

The cashier stopped cold, and the woman looked at me with her mouth open. I said it again, and she replied, “Wow—I don’t even know you. Thank you.”

I’m not sharing this story for applause. I just want to share how good it felt to me. Sometimes when I do small things for someone unexpectedly, I focus less on my own problems. I know that there have been times in my life I’ve needed something and someone looked out for me, so it’s only right to do likewise. I hope the woman meant it when she said she’d “pay it forward.”

It was the best $23 I’ve spent in a long time.

—Gina Cox, Baltimore, Maryland

Many years ago I was a deacon in a church in Georgia. I enjoyed preaching occasionally—one year the pastor asked me to preach the first Sabbath of each month. After one of my better sermons the congregation was filing out, and many were expressing their appreciation for the message I had presented. One of the old saints must have become aware of what was being said. When he filed out, he shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “Well, Danny, I used to know another fellow. He couldn’t preach either! But at least he finally learned.”

That’s just what I needed to hear to “balance me out” that day. I praised God for it.

—V. Dan Miller, Dunlap, Tennessee

13 2 3Did You Know?

TENT LIFE: Dwelling in tents was very common in ancient times among Eastern nations (see Gen. 4:20). Their way of life was pastoral—locomotion became necessary for pasture, and dwellings adapted for such a life became indispensable (see Isa. 38:12). The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in tents (Gen. 18:1; Heb. 11:9) and during the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, throughout their peregrinations until they obtained the Promised Land, they too were in tents (Judges 7:8; 2 Sam. 20:1; 2 Kings 8:21, NKJV). It wasn’t until the return into Canaan from Egypt that the Hebrews became inhabitants of cities.

The people of the East lived very much in the open air, as is obvious from the New Testament narratives. The same is true of them today. The Midianites, the Philistines, the Syrians, the descendants of Ham, the Hagarites, and the Cushanites are mentioned in Scripture as living in tents. But the people most remarkable for this mode of life are the Arabs, who, from the time of Ishmael to the present, have continued the custom of dwelling in tents.

—information from ATS Bible Dictionary and Smith’s Bible Dictionary, accessed through Bible Hub: http://biblehub.com/topical/t/tent.htm

Sound Bite

“Are you a student of Christ? If so, what are you learning?”

—Mark Harris, during his sermon at the Keene Seventh-day Adventist Church in New Hampshire, September 27, 2014

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