Speaker 1: What is up, ryan, here in Mike's Beats Laboratory with our weekly awakened podcast?
Speaker 1: What's happening, mike, four days until Christmas, although this episode's gonna air after Christmas.
Speaker 1: So Mike's just ruined our suspension of disbelief.
Speaker 1: So where to go, buddy?
Speaker 1: Hey, what a great Christmas we just had.
Speaker 1: That's yet to come for us in the current moment, but the moment of airing has already happened.
Speaker 1: It's like a time warp.
Speaker 1: Anyway, hey, if you have any questions you might that are like floating around in your head with their theology questions or Bible questions, that would be fun for me to try to answer in like five minutes or less on a podcast episode.
Speaker 1: I would love to do that to kind of open it up to any of you that have some questions and you can email them to me, probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: My email address is ryanbraley at clclclelkriverorg.
Speaker 1: So my name, ryanbraley at CLC, which stands for Central Lutheran Church at clclelkriverorg.
Speaker 1: Shoot me an email.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get some questions and I can address those.
Speaker 1: But today I was reminded we had some friends over the other night.
Speaker 1: We were having an ugly sweater at Christmas party and I don't know how this story came up, but I forgot all about it.
Speaker 1: But Wyom Wyom was this ministry I was a part of right out of high school, and Wyom in general is really, I mean, even across there's like over a thousand locations around the world and it's just this really cool ministry.
Speaker 1: It's an inter-denominational missions organization and their whole goal is to try to like get young people overseas doing missions work and in a way that doesn't require you to have like a PhD in Bible or theology, and so it's.
Speaker 1: It's just this wonderful ministry.
Speaker 1: You can Google it youth with a mission or Wyom.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they're really known.
Speaker 1: I mean, almost every location I've ever been to is really known for its abundant hospitality and generosity.
Speaker 1: Everybody there is.
Speaker 1: Maybe because most of the folks that are there like broke, it's like well, who cares?
Speaker 1: It's all, well, I don't have any money anyway, might as well share it around.
Speaker 1: But when we were in Wyom, me and Katie, we had just gotten married.
Speaker 1: We were brand nearly married.
Speaker 1: I was, I was 21, she was 22 and we had no money and we were raising support.
Speaker 1: We were domestic missionaries.
Speaker 1: We had like zero money.
Speaker 1: In fact, we had been raising support and we had exactly the amount of money that we needed coming in that would pay all of our bills.
Speaker 1: Like to the dollar almost.
Speaker 1: But we had decided early on.
Speaker 1: Both she and I were raised in families where we were encouraged to tithe or to give money away, to be generous.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the Bible uses this sort of the template is 10%.
Speaker 1: It's in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: Jesus sort of says actually give everything.
Speaker 1: But whatever, we would use this 10%, this tithe number, and we wanted to do that when we got married rock.
Speaker 1: Hey, let's, we're going to keep that going and be givers and give away 10%.
Speaker 1: The problem was we didn't have any money to give away.
Speaker 1: If we gave away 10%, we would be, we would be 10% short of our bills, you know, paying our bills, and I'll never forget that first month our rent came due and we had.
Speaker 1: Our rent was $600 a month for a 600 square foot apartment, a tiny little I could see from one corner to the other corner in our apartment and it was not hard, and so it's like a dollar a square foot and we had to pay for that.
Speaker 1: You know, coming up in like, like in two days and we also had to give our tithe check way.
Speaker 1: We had to give away 10% and if we did, if we gave it away, we would have been $100 short of our rent.
Speaker 1: So the question was like raised for her and I like, should we pay our rent or should we give 10% to God and get, give it away?
Speaker 1: And all we kept coming back to is like we wanted to be people who were generous, so that, well, I don't know, when you're young you're kind of young and naive, maybe a little bit dumb like let's just go for it.
Speaker 1: So we wrote the check for $100 and gave it away and we were a hundred bucks short of our rent and with that, okay, lord, and we just want the dice roll, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we wanted to work that day and a buddy of mine his name is Dale, and Dale Lambert is his name.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget him.
Speaker 1: He was a few years older than I was and he was there and we came into work and he's like hey, man, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm okay.
Speaker 1: And he's like what's up?
Speaker 1: Can I pray for you?
Speaker 1: I go sure I'm actually, you know, a hundred bucks short of my rent.
Speaker 1: He was over a little, yeah, and no joke.
Speaker 1: Right then, and there he pulls out his checkbook because back then people carried checkbooks around, I guess and he's like how much are you short?
Speaker 1: I was like 100 bucks.
Speaker 1: And he writes me a check for $100.
Speaker 1: And he's like here you go and hands me the check and just gets up and walks out and I was like you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: A.
Speaker 1: I was floored because I felt like I don't know, I felt like God had kind of honored mine and Katie's commitment to be givers and to give away money.
Speaker 1: And then two like this guy just was generous and I was like, yeah, here you go, you need 100 bucks, take it.
Speaker 1: And I was man, we are floored and I will never forget that story.
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of a question I often would ask my kids when they were little.
Speaker 1: My kids were little and we'd be.
Speaker 1: They would often argue about sharing their stuff, and which I know is hard for kids.
Speaker 1: But I would ask them and say, hey, what kind of a world do you want to live in?
Speaker 1: Do you want to live in a world where nobody shares?
Speaker 1: We just kind of keep our own things, and then in that case I'm not going to share my stuff with you.
Speaker 1: Or do you want to live in a world where we all share things, and at least we try to.
Speaker 1: And of course they would say, oh, we want to share, you know, because it was better for them if I shared my things with them.
Speaker 1: And I often think about that, like, what kind of a world do you and I want to create and live in?
Speaker 1: So I was telling this story about my friend, dale Lambert, at this ugly sweater Christmas party and one of my friends heard the story.
Speaker 1: He was oh my gosh, I want to be like that, I want to be the kind of person that does that.
Speaker 1: And I looked at her.
Speaker 1: I go then, do it, start now.
Speaker 1: And I'm like it doesn't matter if you have, you know, a little bit of money or a lot of bit of money.
Speaker 1: If you want to be a giver, then be a giver and give even a little bit.
Speaker 1: Or when you get more money, you know you can give away a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But the question it still stands what kind of a world do you and I want to live in and what kind of a world do we want to create?
Speaker 1: Jesus is quoted in the book of Acts, in Acts 2035.
Speaker 1: He says it's more blessed to give than to receive.
Speaker 1: And so again, do we believe that's true or not, if it's more blessed to give than to receive, then let's be giver.
Speaker 1: Let's create a world where people are givers I love.
Speaker 1: In the Old Testament, god tells the people of Israel hey, I'm going to provide for you.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm going to do it in this way I'm going to have bread sort of rain down from heaven, and you can collect enough for you to have that day, and I'll provide.
Speaker 1: Trust me, and you'll have enough every day.
Speaker 1: But here's what would happen If you gathered more than you needed and sometimes they were tempted to do so like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if God's they would sort of have this mentality of scarcity and they weren't sure if God would provide, even though God had promised to provide and had provided every day prior to this.
Speaker 1: If they got nervous and they would gather more than they needed, then it would rot.
Speaker 1: And so they would gather and they would store it in their tents and it would rot, it would get full of maggots and it's like it's this incredibly true story about when we gather too much more than we need, then sometimes that stuff rots, and so, again, what kind of a world do we want to create?
Speaker 1: Because it all belongs to God anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, and in many ways it's this old cliche we're simply stewards, and so may we be people who live with our hands open.
Speaker 1: May we be generous, may we be giving to those who are in need and then have our hands open for days and times when we're in need.
Speaker 1: May we contribute to this beautiful, like fluid, movement of giving and receiving and this abundance, that sort of modeled in Jesus and in the ministry of Jesus, and may we create a world of generosity and abundance and radical hospitality, because, like Jesus said, it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.
Speaker 1: So today, look for ways in which you can give, give of yourself, of your time, your energy, your attention, even your money.
Speaker 1: You can help somebody out, and when you do, know that you're entering in this movement of God and the world of generosity and abundance in hospitality, because it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.
Speaker 1: All right, catch you later.
Speaker 1: Peace.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends.
Speaker 1: And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clclcriverorg.
Speaker 1: Peace.