Anchor House- Week 21

Anchor House- Week 21 - Dollar

Last week I was switching between working the kitchen and the convenience store counters at Anchor House. I had just taken a few dollars from a dock worker as they purchased their afternoon snack. My next guest was a seafarer who arrived also looking for a snack. They paid with a twenty dollar bill. The dollar bills I had just received from the dock worker were now a part of the change I paid the seafarer.

From the hands of an American, the dollar bills made their way to the hands of a seafarer from the Philippines through the Anchor House cash register.

Who knows where that dollar was headed next. The seafarer headed back to his ship and the ship traveled on to the next port.

Those dollar bills could be anywhere. Oh, the stories they could tell. I don’t often think of a dollar's value beyond what is printed on it. The larger the number the greater the value. I usually don’t think about where the bill came from or what it has been used to purchase or whose hands it had been in. I do think of the countless adults who told me as a child to wash my hands after touching money because “you don’t know where it has been” or “money is dirty.” Outside my need to wash my hands because of its filth, I don’t think of the experiences of the dollar bill much.

I am grateful that God doesn’t look at us like I look at dollar bills. He doesn’t take me at face value. He doesn’t ignore my journeys and stories. Instead he includes me in his story. Regardless if I am a wadded up sweaty, torn dollar bill or a crisp new one-hundred dollar bill, He loves me so much that he chooses to include me in His story through Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. - John 3:16-18

Be blessed and be a blessing,

Matt

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