Well, I have finally come up with the inspiration for another quick post with some spiritual values in it!

The other day, I was at my Grandparents’ house, and they had ALOT of hard work that they needed done. My Dad and my brother Jake both work, and they didn’t have free vacation time, and my Mom was busy helping my Grandma in the kitchen, basically leaving me (okay, and my Uncle Larry) with a boatload of work (including, but not limited to: cutting logs, carrying logs, cleaning up debris from cutting and carrying logs, cutting bamboo, carrying bamboo, burning bamboo, carrying excess bamboo away and tying it up, moving more sticks and debris, etc…).

Two days into all this hard work, thoughts started coming into my mind. Thoughts that said, ‘Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if I got payed for all this hard work? Wouldn’t it?’. As the day went on, the thoughts kept coming, and as I got more and more tired, and the work got harder and harder, the thoughts bombarded me more and more and more. Before I knew it, I felt that I deserved some compensation for my hard work.

Finally, I said to myself, ‘Nick, you are not doing this job for money. You’re doing this because you love your grandparents. If you were doing this for money, you wouldn’t work non-stop. You’re working hard because they can’t, and you love them. God said somewhere in the Psalms (I looked it up, Psalms 37:4), “Delight in me, and I will give you the desires of your heart”. If they’re going to pay you for your hard work, that’s great. Then I’ll thank God for fulfilling the desires of my heart. But if not, that’s fine too. The fact that you are helping them is compensation enough. God, help me to stop desiring money for my work. I will not allow any more thoughts like this to enter my head now. I am doing this out of love.’

I repeated this for the remainder of day two, and all of day three. Finally, the work was done, and it was time for me to go home. As I was leaving, I spotted a twenty sitting on my Grandparent’s table. My first thought was, ‘That’s for me!’, but I immediately pushed the thought from my head, saying, ‘No, you worked out of love.’
When I got home, still no compensation. No money. But I was fine with that. I had worked out of love, and I felt great about being able to help my Grandparents. Life was good.

The next day, my Dad came up to me, and handed me $50. ‘That’s from Grandma and Grandpa for all the work you did’. My jaw dropped (hey, $50 is alot of money for me), as I remembered how I had just let go of my desire for money, and let God take control. Now, he had granted me the desires of my heart.

~Nick

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