Friday, December 11th April Puckett
Amos 8:4-12
4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”— skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. 7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. 8 “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt. 9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. 11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. 12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
Every day when I go to work I try to make sure I do not leave my faith at home. I work in retail so I am expected to make sure my store is profitable. I balance that with the needs of the people I serve. I sell eyeglasses. Well, most of the time. The rest of the time I fix, repair and frankenstein together glasses for free so people can see. At least once a day I have someone come to my store in need. They may or may not have gotten their glasses from me. It doesn’t matter. The important thing to me is that they leave with a pair of glasses they can wear. I don’t make glasses in the store but I can usually fix a damaged pair or make a whole new pair with spare parts. I get more joy out of doing free repair work than I ever will out of selling glasses.
Dear Lord, please work through me to help those in need. Help me to do all that I do for your glory and not my own. Thank you for the gifts you have given me and for putting me in a position to use those gifts to help others. Please help me to take time to worship you and not let the things of the world keep me separated from you. Amen.