Sunday

Sharing all good things...

Quite a few years ago, I presented a message on laity Sunday to the church we were attending - a message I titled The Three Point Sermon Our Pastor Will Never Give. As we concluded a study of Galatians last week in the mid-week group at the church we now attend, I was reminded of one of the points I'd made in that message.
"One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches." ~ Galatians 6:6
I don't know where, or if, I filed my notes from years ago, but I don't recall commenting on the imperative. Paul was not making a suggestion. It was a must. And as I reflected on this verse with a fresh perspective, share and good things stood out.
"Share usually implies that one as the usual holder grants to another the partial use, enjoyment or possession of a thing." ~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary online
To share means that I give the "use, enjoyment or possession" of something I already own - a good thing I already possess.
It's easy and natural for me to share with my family and friends, but Galatians 6:6 challenges me to be more creative and intentional in how and what I share with "the one who teaches".
Photos from my backyard swing (with tall glasses of ice cold water) and Pollywog Creek wanderings: beauty berry, rain-sparkled cypress leaves, zinnias, trumpet vines, scruffy molting cardinal fledglings and messy red-bellied woodpeckers, clinging vines on rusty fence, an assortment of flowering weeds, and a hardworking husband who stubbornly insists on cleaning up debris from the felled pines with a bandaged, stitched-up finger.