Thoughts for another day


January 5, 2011

Today's verse: Ps. 40:17. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

The God we worship is a beautiful Father. He is a great Judge and impartial with His children. Whoever reveres and obeys Him gets His choicest blessings and leads a fulfilling life because the power of His hand is upon them who're loyal to Him, and who keep Him as the focus of their lives. Now look at the poor man out there in the world. Who's there to fend for him? Who'll take note of him? He's but a caricature and unnecessary. Don't we feel like that when a beggar comes to us as we stand at a street corner or a bus-stop? Isn't the beggar an inconvenience? How many think in their hearts, 'ah, here's a person I can help?' I'll easily wager, hardly any. For that's our nature, we don't want to be inconvenienced by the plight of the poor.

Long ago, I was working in a top advertising agency in India and handling a multinational bank. They asked us to make them a calendar with a different theme. I sat with the creative people and examined all aspects of the bank which we could portray and one by one eliminated our options as we felt that competition would also be working on them. Finally one aspect attracted us and that was philanthropy. The bank was into philanthropy so we took that as the theme. My CEO was also into it and when I told him about the theme, he patted my back and told me to work hard on it and get an outstanding calendar for the Bank.

We went to NGOs: took smiling pictures of lepers, children, physically and visually handicapped people. Our theme was hope for the poor and marginalized and their smiles really caught you the right way. We even initiated a mechanism by which the recipients of the calendar would be able to donate to that charity. Yes, we had a masterpiece. All excited, we went to the MD of the bank to make the presentation expecting it to be a cake-walk. But we couldn't sell the product. My CEO even went to the Chairman of the bank who was supposed to be in philanthropy a lot, but he too didn't buy it. Later we learnt that they didn't want the calendar because they felt it could bring down the spirits of the recipients each morning they saw the calendar on their wall sitting at the breakfast table! What sordid logic. The smiles of all those people made them think the calendar to be disturbing!!!

But what does God do about the poor? You know Scripture says, even though I'm poor and needy the Lord thinks about me. How marvelous that I though poor, am still on the canvas of the Master like anybody else. Yes my friend that is how our God is. Praise His Name.