Dropping my pennies
Some have been asking me what's with the term 'dropping my pennies'. Hm. Let me try to explain this. It was a concept that I shared with my Absolut Camp groupmates.
It's a phrase I heard from John Piper when he challenged American college students not to waste their lives. He asked: 'Why do you want to drop your pennies in others' dreams?'
I guess the concept here is how many of us (myself included) spend so much of our time hording up our own money, treasures and possessions, and somehow at the end of the day we give a little bit to charity or to some orphan somewhere. We earn our condos, our MPVs, our plasma TVs and then drop our leftovers to someone in need. Almost like we kinda wanna alleviate our own guilt.
I mean, I'm not trying to guilt-trip anyone here. The reason why the phrase keeps popping in my mind is that I find I can't do more than drop pennies. I can't. I want my comfy life, my car, my nice house. I want all those things. But then, I think of all the people who give sacrificially to causes they believe in. Or people who just move their whole family to India to serve the poor. Then, I realise, I can't do it.
I guess, it really isn't very much about whether what we give is our leftovers. I think we all need to satisfy our own needs first, and there's nothing wrong in that. So, in that sense, WHATEVER we give is something leftover. I guess as I ponder, it really is our heart attitude that matters. We need to believe that someone else's dream is as valid as ours. He yearns for it as much as I yearn for mine.
Don't drop pennies in others' dreams.
It's a phrase I heard from John Piper when he challenged American college students not to waste their lives. He asked: 'Why do you want to drop your pennies in others' dreams?'
I guess the concept here is how many of us (myself included) spend so much of our time hording up our own money, treasures and possessions, and somehow at the end of the day we give a little bit to charity or to some orphan somewhere. We earn our condos, our MPVs, our plasma TVs and then drop our leftovers to someone in need. Almost like we kinda wanna alleviate our own guilt.
I mean, I'm not trying to guilt-trip anyone here. The reason why the phrase keeps popping in my mind is that I find I can't do more than drop pennies. I can't. I want my comfy life, my car, my nice house. I want all those things. But then, I think of all the people who give sacrificially to causes they believe in. Or people who just move their whole family to India to serve the poor. Then, I realise, I can't do it.
I guess, it really isn't very much about whether what we give is our leftovers. I think we all need to satisfy our own needs first, and there's nothing wrong in that. So, in that sense, WHATEVER we give is something leftover. I guess as I ponder, it really is our heart attitude that matters. We need to believe that someone else's dream is as valid as ours. He yearns for it as much as I yearn for mine.
Don't drop pennies in others' dreams.
I agree. It all boils down to our motivation for life. Pursuing material comfort is not sin, we're hedonist Christians. If God has blessed us by the fact we're more well-off in Singapore, we don't need to purposely eat garbage and drink urine so to say. I just hope that the want for comfort will not overtake my purpose of wanting to bless others with the kind of personhood that I am and will be that people donot just see me or my good works but the God that works through me.