A Dollar for Remembrance

I will be eating on just a dollar a day.

Many people around the world can only buy food with the change we might have in our pockets. So in response, my girlfriend and I have chosen to eat as they would eat for the next month and a half (until Easter).

A few months ago, I was challenged by a preacher from Memphis. He emphasized the true immensity of God's heart for the poor, hungry, needy, afflicted and suffering. But I didn't know exactly how to respond.

Then my girlfriend brought up this dollar idea just a couple days ago. (Oddly, I had just read the beginning of Romans 12: offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.) I'm not a super-Christian. I just want to worship God more fully and rightly, and this seems to fit with God's heart.

This blog will now be on hold until Easter. I will instead be documenting my experience on this blog, starting February 6. Laura and I want to be able to look back on this to remember what it was like.

So A Dollar to Remember begins.

A Perfect Picture

I love the Old Testament.

I have a couple friends who say, "All we really need to know is Jesus." Jesus is life to us--God with skin, our Savior and perfect example. But the Old Testament is a critical part of the grand story of God and His relationship to people. It helps form our view of Jesus so much richer and fuller.

For instance, I ran across an intense picture today in Genesis. Chapter 22 tells the story of Abraham, the father set to sacrifice his son Isaac. I was struck by how similar Isaac and Jesus really are:

• His father loves him very much. (vs 2)


• He is his father's only son. (vs 2)


• He was the fulfillment of a promise. (21:1)


• He was sacrificed by his father. (vs 10)


• He went willingly. (vs 9)


• He carried the wood for his own sacrifice. (vs 6)


• On the third day, he was delivered from death. (vs 4)

Wow. Even thousands of years ago, they were foreseeing a picture of Christ. How much richer that makes it!

I love that.