A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
My sister Grace once ordered business envelopes for our father’s publishing company. The salesman for the printing company phoned me. “Want to check on this order for me? It seems a little high.”
I checked with Grace. She gasped. “I ordered 100,000 envelopes? I meant to order 10,000! Oh, well,” she said nonchalantly, “What are a few zeros more or less?” She knew better, of course. She was embarrassed and grateful that the salesman caught her error.
A “few extra zeros” will destroy any budget. It’t that kind of thinking that bloated the U.S. national debt to 36 trillion dollars.
A family drowning in debt asked me to help them. Together, we worked out a doable budget, with space for unexpected expenses, that would still get them out of debt within two years. They were delighted. But they ignored the zeros. They kept spending, because, after all, “The children deserve a happy childhood.” True. But would they enjoy their childhood under the stress of monstrous debt?
My water company strictly believes in zeros. Recently I accidentally left out a zero on a check I typed for my water bill. They got my $5.50 check and promptly cut off my water!
Nor is it good to treat human beings as zeros. Too often people are considered mere commodities to be dispensed without thought. Children are not zeros to be ignored. They are eternal souls made in the actual image of God Himself. They must always be taken into consideration in family decisions. Church members are not negligibles, to be exploited to feed someone’s ego. Voters are not mere cyphers. They are citizens with rights, and they deserve wise legislators. Employees are not zeros. Business decisions that affect them ought to be made considering the impact on their lives.
King David’s enemies treated him like superfluous zeros. In Psalm 69:20 (nlt) he said,
Their insults have broken my heart,
and I am in despair.
If only one person would show some pity;
if only one would would turn and comfort me.
Then King David took heart when he remembered how deeply God cares about unvalued people.
The humble will see their God at work and be glad.
Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged.
For the Lord hears the cries of the needy;
He does not despise His imprisoned people. Psalm 69:32,33 (nlt)
Several years ago a country planned a surprise military attack on a neighboring country. They built their battle command center within a children’s hospital, reasoning that the attacked country was civilized enough not to retaliate by killing innocent babies. By their cold-blooded calculations, they treated their own children as zeros, useful only for war-time strategy.
When I was ten years old, walking home from school one day, I saw a dense cloud of black smoke just a couple of blocks away. I don’t know why I felt apprehensive, but I asked a passer-by, “What is that burning?”
“Oh, it’s just John Rice’s church burning.” My father’s church? “Just” his church burning? Daddy had moved to Dallas during the Great Deperssion to build a church for people no one else seemed to care about. He’d preached, and prayed and sawed and hammered over that building. His hands were blistered with his hard manual labor. It was not “just John Rice’s church.” It was a place where people came to know God’s love and care.
God help us never to consider any human being as a negligible zero. They are so precious to Him that He suffered the loss of His beloved only Son to give them eternal life.
