So Jason and I happened to catch a show on TLC a couple months ago about people who make entering sweepstakes their full time job. Even though I can’t see it as being a God-honoring way to make a living (so many proverbs about the proper way to earn money come to mind), I was curious enough to enter a few contests I could find online that night, for fun. I spent no more than an hour searching and entering (with a new e-mail address set up just for this – not interested in the spam that could result) and thought maybe I’d do more of that every now and then, y’know in my spare time. Turns out I really don’t have spare time (I guess I already knew that) and I don’t think I’ll be bumping contest-entering above what’s currently at the top of the list for each day. However, I discovered just last week that I won the 3rd place prize in the Red Cross Racing sweepstakes (I was going for the car…) and was mailed a T-shirt and hat.
Now it’s no car, but a fun prize that made me wonder if this could work to sporadically get stuff to use and share with others ~ if only I didn’t have to use up time to do it. Stewardship is all-encompassing: finding the balance between taking the best care possible of all the resources God lends us (time, money, energy, etc etc etc) is a task bigger than we are and requires much prayer and wisdom from Him. Not sure where this “hobby” would fit in for me! Thoughts?
Allerbling – fun name, first of all. And secondly, highly practical. My friend, Emily, sent me a link to their website a couple years ago and I bought a bracelet for Bryce immediately. He was 3-years old, recently diagnosed with a dairy and egg allergy added to his nut allergy, and we were looking ahead to situations such as a week at Maranatha, where he would be supervised by college students and fed snacks daily. He was a little young to trust to communicate his allergy or to evaluate if something was safe, and just writing down or telling the person at check-in seemed inadequate. So we trained him to show the child care workers his bracelet (which he loved and was so happy to wear! made him feel special I think) when it was snack-time, so they could remember about his allergies and confirm the snack was safe. I also checked in ahead of time to see what was being served, read the ingredients, and make contact with someone in the room familiar with food allergies and label-reading, but this was a good double-check. He still chooses to bring it to school, kept primarily in his backpack, but he’ll slip it on occasionally too. There are so many things he can’t have that others can that I kinda like when there is something he has that others don’t, even if it’s a bright orange rubber bracelet.
“Time is so short, and the work which we have to do in it is so great, that we have none of it to spare. The work which we have to do to prepare for eternity, must be done in time, or it never can be done; and it is found to be a work of great difficulty and labor, and therefore that for which time is the more requisite” (Jonathan Edwards).
Well, here’s a cheater post if I ever wrote one! The above quote is a a snippet of a longer quote from a blogpost referencing another work! So it’s like a third-hand sentiment but I read it on the Cripplegate page last week, and have been thinking about it since. So if you have 2 minutes, redeem the time and read the original post (Time Management in Light of Eternity). And if you have 30 minutes, consider it a time investment to read the sermon (The Preciousness of Time and the Importance of Redeeming It)!
