For those that don’t know, Secret Millionaire follows millionaires who live the life of the poor for a week as they seek out people in need, to whom, at the end of the week, they give lavish amounts of money to.
I like this show. I think it’s ironic that it’s on FOX and that, at least in the two hour premiere I’ve seen, the Secret Millionaires mostly meet people helping other people through church-sponsored ministries.
It’s as if FOX is showing the world what most Baptist kids have experienced who’ve ever gone on a mission trip. No, we didn’t give lavish checks, but we gave a week, got out of our comfortable surroundings, and dug into the hard work of trying to help those in need. But then we’d come back to our “normal” lives, and we’d feel uncomfortable in this “normalcy” for awhile, but a few weeks would pass, the feeling would be gone, and we’d be back to living for ourselves. I assume that was the case for most of us; it was for me. Then again, there were the chosen few who, through one week of mission work, would get the call from God (why is it so clear for some and not others?), and they’d be headed off to Africa, or New York, or somewhere that people needed help. Which is really everywhere, but I digress.
Secret Millionaire is a great show. It’s actually doing some good. It’s worthwhile “reality” TV, if there is such a thing. I was readily engaged with the first show, where a millionaire dad and his son spent a week living in poverty. I started crying when he handed the first check to a woman who had once been homeless and had lived in a creek-bed for a year. This same woman, under the assumption that her new employee and his son were both living hand-to-mouth, took them under her wing and helped them out because someone once helped her out. When she received a check for $50,000, her first reaction was to say “I can’t accept that” over and over and over again. It was too much.
I started crying because it’s such a real depiction of what we do with God’s grace.
It’s too much.
We don’t feel worthy of it.
We don’t feel like we’ve earned it.
It’s too much.
There’s no way we could ever accept it.
Why would anyone want to give us that much of anything worth something?
It’s too much.
And I believe a lot of us live in that moment, shirking back from all that God wants to give us, repeating “It’s too much.”
It is too much.
And we will never do enough to earn it.
So do like the lady did.
Take it.
Say thanks.
Then live your life in response to that kind of generous grace.
We are seldom afraid when our opposition is smaller than us. When we keep our challenges manageable, we not only manage our fear, but squelch our faith. One way to deal with our fears is to surround ourselves with security and predictability. We may look courageous when in fact all we’ve done is minimize our risk. Whenever God calls us to something, it inspires not only faith, but also fear. God always summons us to something bigger than ourselves. When he calls us to battle, the opposition will always be greater than the strength we have.
