Are you as Important as a Lily?

The Skid Row streets were cold and dark. In contrast, the Mission’s Chapel and dining room were bright, and filled with hungry, homeless people, enjoying their first hot meal in days.

One mother and her three small children were so hungry they seemed to swallow their food without chewing it. When I offered her groceries to take back to their flophouse, she said, “I would love to have the food, but I can’t carry it. You see, Mrs. Jordan, when you’re homeless, you can own only what you can carry.”

I knew this little family was hungry, so I asked one of our staff to drive them back to their flophouse, so they would have food for the next few days. And as she walked out of the Mission that mother held tightly to the only things that really mattered – her children!

What’s important to me? What am I holding onto? This lesson from my Skid Row teacher seemed to parallel a truth that I read from another great teacher, in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Don’t worry about your life. Isn’t life more important than food, the body more important than clothes? The lilies of the field do not labor or spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more clothe you?”

Jesus, the world’s greatest Teacher put life into perspective more than 2000 years ago when He said, “Don’t worry so much about your life. Things aren’t important. God cares about you!”

Blessings,

Willie Jordan