Putting others first produces great fruit. I believe Winston Churchill said it best: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Growing up I learned this at a really young age. My mom endeavored to teach us to recognize the needs in others, and then take action, do something about it. Well, my mom didn’t drive, so we took public transportation everywhere. And I mean everywhere we went, we took public transportation. And she taught us, if somebody ever got on the bus, and they were older than us, or if they were carrying children or groceries, you’d better believe you better get up and give them your seat. It wasn’t always fun, it wasn’t always easy. But as time went on we made this a habit in our lives.
There’s an interesting story regarding putting others first and recognizing the need in people’s lives about President Lincoln. It was during the Civil War. He had a lot of responsibilities but one of the hard responsibilities he had was deciding to pardon soldiers who were on death row for desertion. And these soldiers would have letters/testimonials written by really important people, family and friends. And there was this one soldier in particular who it came up, he made an appeal so that he wouldn’t have to die for deserting. President Lincoln said: “Well, does he have any letters on his behalf?” And the officer in charge said: “No, sir, all of his family and friends died in the war.” President Lincoln said: “OK, I will give my decision in the morning.”
Well, he wrestled with this all night long. In the morning, the officer came to him and said: “Sir, have you made your decision?”, and he said: Yes. The decision has been made because of a testimonial of a friend.” And the officer reminded him: “But sir, he didn’t have any friends; everybody died in the war.” And he said, “I’ll be his friend.” And the man was released.
You see, when we choose to give and put others first, great things happen, great fruit is produced. There are many truisms that I’m sure that most of you are familiar with, that have been passed down from generation to generation.
One of them was shared by Teddy Roosevelt all the way to another wonderful person: “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” And that’s very true. And then another one very familiar to all of us from God is “If you have it to give, give it. Don’t withhold good when it’s in the power of your hand to do it.” Don’t withhold it from others.
I work in a little beachside diner, and it’s one that all the locals go to. In fact, it’s one where everybody knows your name and if somebody doesn’t show up, you definitely recognize it. And there’s a couple that come in every day, and it had been days and they hadn’t been in there, and so they had really been on my heart. That evening while I was at home scrolling through Facebook and I saw that they posted “Prayers, prayers, I need your prayers. Please pray for our daughter”. Well, of course immediately I started speaking in tongues and praying, and I went to my husband and I said, “Honey, something’s going on, will you pray with me?” And we prayed. This was still pressing on my heart, and I couldn’t just let it sit through the night, so I sent them a private message telling them that I would really love to pray with them in person, or on the phone, if they had an opportunity please call me, and so I went to sleep speaking in tongues. Woke up the next morning went to work, and here they come walking through the door, and they walked right over to me and grabbed my hand and I was like, “What’s going on?” Well, their daughter had contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease (legionnaire’s disease) from some water that she drank, and she was in the ICU. and they called in all the family and said that she wouldn’t make it through the next 48 hours, to say your goodbyes. All of her systems were shutting down in her body and well, they know God, and they believe in God. And I continued to remind them about the power of God, and we decided to pray right then and there. And I prayed with them for their daughter, and it was at that moment that the tables turned for her in her life and she’s alive today and very well and you would never know, never know, that she had been sick. So when we choose to give, great fruit is produced, so give big!
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