HE WAS A TRAMP
It was the height of the Great Depression. Men left home by the hundreds of thousands to travel to far places to get work and send money home. Seldom did it work out very well, and they had to keep traveling to survive. They were not vagrants. Like homeless people today, they were out of work, "down on my luck," and they would work at any job for a little money.
The tramp came to the door of my Grandmother's home and knocked. My Dad, a young boy, was nearby and watched his mother do what she had done for many tramps. The man said, "Mame, I wonder if you could spare a cup of tea for a traveling man?"
My grandmother told him to have a seat on the porch steps, and she went inside and made him a cup of tea and a sandwich. After she gave it to the man, he turned to my Dad, smiled, and told him, "Ask for a little, and you might get more."
My Dad told his brothers and sisters what happened, and that line got to be a well used line in my Dad's family. Dad brought it to our family also.
Modern advertising has hammered the message home that what you have is not enough. You deserve more. The whole culture is flaming with discontent as two or three generations of Americans now demand to have more. What we have is never enough. And, if we don't get it now, we take out a loan at the bank and go up to our nostrils in debt in order to have more stuff.
It was not always so:
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
Philippians 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Not all your WANT, but all you NEED. We who follow the carpenter of Nazareth must soon learn to be content with our needs being provided for by God. In the end, he often give us more than we need, but it is rude to demand more than we need from God.
Let us be content with enough.
Ask for a little, and you might get more.
