Yesterday we received a cluster of care packages from a dear friend on the other side of the country (a friendship which began as a result of this blog!), and I am reminded of how capable we are of blessing other people, near and far. The boxes that we opened were brilliant expressions of the title “care package”, and there was great joy and cheer in the Haub household as a result. Mercy has stopped wearing her new pink leotard and tutu only long enough to go to sleep at night, and I am not sure which item thrilled Aaron more: the giant dump-truck or the delicious homemade cookies!
God is neither lazy nor deficient in bringing those people into our lives that are in need of exactly the blessing we are capable of giving. Yet the temptation for so many of us is to insulate, withdraw, and look the other way. This same friend passed along a quotation yesterday to me via email, and I will let dear Amy Carmichael say what I think I am trying to…
Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take from hence
thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon,
before he die….” And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, “Put
now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the
cords.” And Jeremiah did so. (Jeremiah 38:10-12)Amy Carmichael’s commentary:
The dungeon where Jeremiah was kept was one of those horrible pits that were
used in olden times as prisons. The king told Ebed-melech only to take
thirty men and pull Jeremiah out of the dungeon with ropes, before he died.
But that kind man, whose name means “Servant of the King,” took the trouble
to go and fetch pieces of cast-off clothes and old soft rags. He told
Jeremiah to put them under his armpits to keep the ropes from hurting him as
they pulled him out. In Matthew 25:40 we read what the King of Kings must
have said to the Servant of the King, Ebed-melech. “Inasmuch as ye have
done it to one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”