Tangible

 I learned a lot from my grandfather, and I learned a lot while traveling with him. Nothing helps you better understand human nature and all its facets than interacting with different people every week and having to deliver a message to them that is not pleasant, cheery, or full of unbridled optimism for the future. On the contrary, the messages were challenging and caused many a hackle to bristle.

Because we did what we did as unto the Lord, we had no expectations, good, bad, or otherwise, but some places would take up an offering for the ministry, then hand it to us in a brown paper bag, a hat, a Kroger’s plastic bag, or whatever else they could find. On our return home, we’d go through the bags, finding our fair share of used Kleenex, gum wrappers, and even a half-eaten Lifesaver inside a gum wrapper. My grandmother had thought someone had wrapped a coin in the paper to keep it safe.

The money, what there was of it, always went into the ministry account, and with it, we built dozens of churches, an orphanage, and countless homes.  We provided for the needs of thousands, whether in the form of food, clothing, milk cows, or dug wells, because we saw it as God’s money, and it needed to go toward His work.

It’s hard for some people to process that while we were sending hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid to Romania, my grandfather and I walked the neighborhood collecting aluminum cans to take into the recycling center. If only we’d taken Creflo Dollar’s course on running a ministry, but I digress.

What I learned during the decade I traveled with my grandfather is that while some people are generous, giving, selfless in the most glorious of ways, will give you the shirt off their backs and forfeit a meal just so you could eat, some are juvenile and spiteful and think that by attempting to demean the messenger, they have voided the message.

The lesson I learned from my grandfather was more profound still, and it is one that I’ve held close for the better part of thirty-five years. Anyone who knew my grandfather can attest that he was no fashion icon. Bespoke suits and silk ties were not in his wheelhouse. He was a simple man who was not ashamed of his simplicity because simplicity is not something one should be ashamed of. Hypocrisy, double-mindedness, pride, arrogance, sin, and vice, those are worthy of feeling the burning sting of shame, but simplicity is not.

I couldn’t swear to it, but I can say with a high level of certainty that my grandfather never owned a shirt that cost more than $20. The only extravagance he allowed himself were UGG boots because his feet swelled and hurt, and they were more comfortable than anything else he’d come across. This was also at a time before they were fashionable with teenagers and lonely housewives, but still, they were pricy even back then.

One day we were walking the neighborhood collecting cans when a grungy man in a torn tank top approached us asking for money. I told my grandfather what he wanted, and my grandfather asked what he needed the money for. The man said he needed to buy a sweater because he was cold.

Even though it had been March, it had been unseasonably cold for Southern California. After I relayed the message to my grandfather, he nodded and beckoned the man to follow. We stopped by our garage, left the half-full trash bag of aluminum cans, went around the corner to our apartment, where my grandfather grabbed his wallet, and walked up the street toward the stoplight. Halfway up the street, the man asked where we were going, and after asking my grandfather, he answered, “the store.”

We took a right on Harbor Boulevard, up one block to Orangethorpe Avenue, where once upon a time, there was a Montgomery Ward. That, and a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. We walked in, found the men’s department, and my grandfather said, “tell him to pick a sweater.”

The man did, and although I don’t remember the brand, I remember it was $28.74 before taxes. You may laugh at the price today, but back then, it was close to a fortune. Just for context, I was wearing homemade pants to school during that time.

We paid for the sweater and gave it to the man. He thanked us several times, and as we were walking home, I asked my grandfather why he hadn’t just given the man one of his old sweaters, then he could have bought a new sweater for himself.

He bent down so he could look me in the eyes and said, “When you give as unto God, you give your best. Always remember that. You don’t give God the things you would have otherwise thrown in a dumpster; you give Him what you, yourself, would have kept and treasured.”

Almost thirty-five years later, it’s still a principle I strive to live by.

When Peter asked what they would have, it wasn’t after spotting Jesus a bowl of fish head soup. It was after leaving everything behind. The twelve that sat with Jesus had burned every bridge, torched every ship, and severed every lifeline and safety net. They were marked men, known to be followers of Christ, no longer able to return to their old lives.

There’s a lot there to think about. One of the most poignant is whether or not you, too, are known far and wide as one of His or if you keep Him secret and hidden afraid of what others might think.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.