Nearly a year after Michael Miller visited our home in St. Louis and prayerfully called us to work for The Micah Project, I find myself sitting on a plane to Honduras with my husband on my left and our toddler on my lap—both napping. Seizing the small window to snag a moment in the Word, I flip open my pocket-sized Bible. Out of any sort of regular rhythm, I check the date and flip to that Proverb: 22. With my brain already stirred up by the travel flurry, I have a hard time slowing down enough to feel like I’m actually grasping anything. Lord, help me see what you want me to see!
I linger a while on verse 9,
“Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.”
A bountiful eye? What does that mean? I chew on what this phrase might be getting at for as long as my sleep-deprived mom brain will allow. Finally I finish out the chapter, hoping that some sort of seed has been sown in me. With such a quick and blurry-eyed devotional life, I admit that I sometimes wonder if my days of seeing and hearing from the Lord are long lost in a sea of diapers, fruit snacks, and googling how to attack various types of stains. Oh Lord, am I still of any use to you?
Later, after a warm greeting from Michael and his solid crew of rowdy yet lovable teenage boys, we all load up in one of Micah Project's fifteen-passenger vans (15? That’s it? Nah, there’s always room for one more!). As we drive along the windy highway, we come up on a toll way of sorts that is lined with people, mostly women and children, who are running up to vehicles with a small selection of typical treats, hoping to make any profit they can as they themselves bake in the hot sun. I’ve gotten so used to this scene that I forget the Christ-like compassion that the Micah boys apparently have not. Fifteen-year-old David leans out the window to call over one of the vendors. I imagine he is hungry for a sweet snack, but instead he surprises me by handing her the delicious Burger King whopper he has been saving for himself. Inspired by his generosity, every other Micah boy begins to join in, searching the van for every order of fries and burgers they can find, all so that they, too, can give them away.
And that’s when I remember and start to understand Proverbs 22:9,
“Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.”
Oh… So this is what it means to have a bountiful eye—seeing another’s need and giving whatever you have to meet it! I am particularly struck by who I am seeing with such a “bountiful eye” in this moment—the very kids who come to us begging and hoarding and stealing, all because they have been trained to think they won’t have their needs met unless they have an eye out for themselves. And now look at them! Freely giving to another the very thing they just treasured moments ago (and, believe me, a whopper is no small thing to an ever-ravenous boy stuck who is stuck for hours in a van). How? A bountiful eye. Through these kids’ time at Micah, experience has shown them, they are cared for—a bed to sleep on, a roof over their heads, food on their plates, and love wherever they turn. Now full, they remember what it feels like when they themselves were once empty, cold, hungry, alone. And instead of turning their eye, they catch sight, they have mercy, they give.
And then I wonder… why didn’t I join in, shuffling through my own snack bag to experience the blessing of sharing my food with the hungry, too? And why do I doubt, after all this time seeing the Lord’s never-ending faithfulness to me, that he won’t come through "this time"? Why do I replay anxious thoughts, doubting over and over that I have “enough”? Will I get enough time in the Word to be an effective disciple? Will we have enough financial support heading out on the field? Will I have enough strength to do all that is on my plate--with a whole new kid on the way? Do I have enough time, enough energy, enough sleep, enough talent, enough money.... enough, enough, ENOUGH!
Who do I think I am to doubt that my GOD is enough for me? Why do I anxiously wonder that what I need will eventually run out, when my proven-trustworthy Lord has promised me that he will supply all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ (Philippians 4:19)? He always has, and he always will—even in spite of my not-enoughness. I look at these boys, and I wonder, could the grace the Lord has shown to them be big enough for me? Hint: it is. For me. For you. And the more time we spend in His house, the more naturally and readily we’ll begin to believe it, and the more naturally we and readily we will be able to share that grace, too
