having fun…

Did you have fun…?

My husband asked after watching me give away $10 bonus cards in a restaurant…

The cards expired today… tomorrow they would be worthless… so we decided to give them to those around us…

There was only one couple I knew in the restaurant… another family whose boys looked familiar from the after-school ministry at church … I gave to both of them… but the other five… I gave away to complete strangers…

Approaching the table with a… Hi… How are you this evening… I explained what I wanted to give them… asked if they would like to receive…

I got odd looks on approach… most wary… (my husband confirmed this…)

But once they saw it was a gift… no strings attached… smiles crossed faces… even on the one who seemed most skeptical about a stranger approaching their table…

So… Did I have fun…?

Yes…!

It was fun… giving should always be fun… yet this was a little different…

A passage of Jesus’s teaching came to mind… as I anticipated giving to strangers…

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. …” –Jesus

Luke 14:12-14 ESV

Now I know it’s a stretch… those I gave to this evening weren’t blind… lame… poor… they were well off enough to eat out…

But the thought of giving to someone… without any expectation of return… a completely free gift… not a whole banquet… but a portion of their meal… was a blessing…

It… was… fun…!

When was the last time you blessed without expectation of return…? to someone you had no connection with…? nor would you have in the future…?

Go ahead… have some fun… in His name…

Amen…

[Feature Image Photo by Robert Mathews on Unsplash]