His name is Johnny

He’s a panhandler.  I don’t really know much about him from a personal standpoint, but I know inside.  I have seen his lack of honesty, his lack of integrity, his lack of social grace.  In the beginning, Johnny showed up occasionally and asked for us to hire him to do odd jobs.  My husband would put him to work and give him $20 or $50 bucks for very little ‘work’ very poorly done.  

One time we were getting ready to leave when he showed up.  My husband took him around back and showed him some trees that needed planting and where they needed to go.   He gave him the money and we went our way.  When we came back, Louis went to inspect the handiwork.  He came in and said, “You’ve got to see this.”  Johnny dug one big hole, and set a tree, pot and all, into the hole. 

Once he showed up with his sister and her children needing a fair amount of money.  I was redoing my front patio and cleaning out my sunroom for the seasonal change.  So my husband told them to move all the rocks and stack them on the driveway and then had them move all the plants from my sunroom out onto the parking pad.  That was a fiasco for the most part.  The kids were trying to move rocks that were too large for them, trying to throw rocks from the patio to the driveway.  One of the kids hit his mom with a rock.  They dropped and spilled the potted plants.  But they did clear most of the patio and sunroom and my husband finally told them they were done, gave them some money and sent them on their way. 

A couple of days later they all showed up again and needed money because Johnny burned himself while cooking breakfast and didn’t have enough for the antibiotics and pain prescription that they issued at the emergency room.  I had heard them arrive and watched them come up to the door from my study.  Neither seemed in pain or physically hampered in any way.  The arm had a dirty, badly applied gauze bandage which covered “the horrid wound.”  I agreed to give them a very small part of what they asked for just to get rid of them without vocalizing my doubts that the arm was doctored in an emergency room.  At that point, the sister began limping badly and stated that she had been injured the Saturday before working on our property and really needed to see a doctor herself.  I’m fairly non-confrontational up to a point.  That was the point that ended my compliant benevolence.  I told them to leave and if I saw them again, I would call the police and have them removed for trespassing.

Johnny had started showing up when Louis wasn’t home a year or so after we began ‘paying’ him to do odd jobs.  He needed money, he needed a ride, he was hungry.  That was a time when I was being tested and purified in my benevolent giving.  There were times when I sent him off with an excuse.  Other times I gave him money I didn’t really have to spare just to get rid of him.  I would give him a bottle of cold water on a hot day.  Once I gave him bus fare when he asked for cab fare because there is a bus stop close to my home.

I’ve always been a giver.  My father taught me to tithe my allowance as a child and it felt good.  When I began babysitting, I carefully calculated what I ‘owed’ God based on one tenth.  I will put a dollar or a hand full of coins in every red kettle I see at Christmas time.  I’ve had my heart strings pulled many times.  I married a man whose spiritual gift seems to be benevolence without reserve.  At times he has amazed me with wisdom and at times not so much.  But in the past several years, God has been changing the way I think of giving.  I am learning to ask.  I am learning to be honest when I don’t give.  I am learning to present the gift as God’s emissary.  Sometimes I give when I don’t want to.  Sometimes I am filled with joy at the opportunity.  Sometimes I am not released to give.  It’s not as hard as it sounds or at least as it sounded to me in the beginning.

I have learned that it is my obedience not the return or gratitude that makes giving make sense.  I have learned to turn loose of it when I turn loose of it.  I give because it is right at that moment in that instant.  Once I give it is no longer mine to do with.  If I have trusted God in my giving, I must also trust him with the outcome of my giving.

And so the other day I found myself looking through the glass in my door at Johnny.  His first word was “I have a job now,” and then he pointed out that he had even cleaned up and cut his hair.  I might have thought “So what?” because it was obvious he was here to beg.  But something inside felt proud that he cared to say that to me.  He went on with his story: “If I don’t pay $..... on my electric bill they’re going to shut it off.  I was able to pay most of it, but I have to have $30 more and I’ve gotten 12 dollars so far today.  Can I do something to earn at least part of it?  It has to be fast, because I have to get it paid today.”

I said “Wait here,” and walked into the house.  “Father?”  I questioned and received what I needed to know that quickly.  I pulled out two tens.  God said, “Give him 18.”  I hunted and came up with $18.

As I handed him the money, he said, “I get paid on Friday.  I will bring it back.”  I knew what my answer should be.

“Give it to someone else that really needs it.  It is a gift from God.  That’s how he wants it repaid.”  Johnny looked at me steadily for a minute or so, straight in the eye.  “Yes ma’am.  I will.”

I must leave the truth of what is done to the one who instructed me.  I know the whole ‘pay it forward’ concept, but this wasn’t really that at all.  Because as he walked away, I felt God saying, “When he learns to give, it will do him more good than anything he has ever received.”  And I knew God wasn’t just talking about a willingness to transfer money to another person’s hand.  I knew that what God was saying applied as much to me as to Johnny.  Learning to respond to the Father’s desire is far more beneficial than $18 in your hand when you need to pay a bill.  It is what makes you truly successful and blessed.

Dressing up to deceive a blind prophet.

In I Kings chapter 14 we have an interesting story.

At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, ² and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there—the one who told me I would be king over this people. ³ Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.” ⁴ So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh.

So, reading this causes me some questions.  There are examples of people from other nations who brought gifts to prophets and they were amazing.  Yet Jeroboam says “Take him ten loaves of bread, some cakes and a jar of honey” –not a kings gift to a prophet for sure.  But many of the kings of Israel so disdained the messages of the prophets that gifts aren’t even recorded.  Was this part of the disguise, this gift she would bring?

Another question I considered is “Who was the gift meant to impress?”  Was its commonness meant to fool the prophet or perhaps she had so little confidence in his ‘word’ that it didn’t really matter; she just followed instructions.

Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age.  The irony of this statement grabs my mind.  Did Jeroboam not know that this prophet had gone blind?  Did he disguise his wife so that the prophet would be fooled into thinking she was a deserving commoner or did he disguise his wife so the people would not know he was consulting the prophet?

⁵ But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.”  This statement makes me think that the disguise was meant, at least partially, to trick Ahijah.  Did she suppose that the verdict might be kinder if she were not the king’s wife?  Perhaps she doubted that they would really receive ‘God’s message’ from this prophet.

⁶ So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news.  The prophet went strait to the issue.  He also assures her that he has been sent to her.  I’m sure she thought it was the other way around, but things are often not what they appear to be.  I wonder if God had given him no message for her, if he would have even given her an audience, knowing she was the queen.  The track record for being treated well when giving these kind of messages was pretty dim.  Both Ahijah and Jeroboam had to run and hide when he gave Jeroboam the commission  to be king when he was an officer of Solomon’s court. 

Before he gave her the answer she came for, he gave her the history of Jeroboam’s rule.  ⁷Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. ⁸ I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. ⁹ You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.

¹⁰ “‘Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel—slave or free.^[a] I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. ¹¹ Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken!’

Then he turns his attention to the queen.  In a sense, his answer to her is compassionate, though he assures her that her son will die.  Yet he has already assured her that her son will die in his prophecy to Jeroboam.  But he gives this woman’s son a place of honor and respect in his death.  ¹² “As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. ¹³ All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good.

The prophet also adds a sad note.  The rebellion Jeroboam introduced to Israel would cause them to be taken into slavery and scattered.  Jeroboam had a chance to lead the people of the nation back to God, but his doubts and fears caused him to lead them further away thinking that would secure him and his dynasty. ¹⁶ And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

¹⁷ Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died. ¹⁸ They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as the Lord had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.

The story is a sad one.  Why do we seek to deceive when we are consulting God?  Why does integrity and honesty not count in our approach to God?  Why do we receive a mandate or a promise from God and then foolishly submit it to human fear and reason?  Why to we pretend to be strong or capable when approaching our need before God?

What if our deceptions were immediately put on the table as in this story.  What if our white lies were dealt with as in the story of Ananias and Sapphira?  How would it change us to know we would be quickly and surely called on our pretense?

And I have recently had cause to ask myself another set of questions.  When I pray for others, am I open to the insight God wants to give me in my human blindness?  Or am I more concerned with how I appear?  When I bless, am I sensitive to the nature and plan of God?  Or do I say what is comfortable and acceptable in our society? When I give, am I content with the deception and disguise of those who need my hand or my words? Is it even possible to be God’s person in this age?  When is it no longer about us, but about the will, plan and voice of God?  Are we people of so little faith?  If so, how can we save our nation, our families, ourselves.  Or has this faith we claim simply become a dress up game?