'Pour Out Blessing Until There Is No More Want'

Malachi 3:10. "Test me out, please, in this respect,” Jehovah of armies has said, “whether I shall not open to YOU people the floodgates of the heavens and actually empty out upon YOU a blessing until there is no more want."


Living with the Guyanese gives you an interesting perspective on this verse. Allow me to explain...

This past weekend I had to go out to the coast to visit a bank so I could replenish my dwindling cash reserves. As simple as this sounds, it gets quite monotonous when you do it several times. Boat from Orealla to Skeldon - 7 hours. Bus from Skeldon to Rose Hall - 2 hours. Bus from Rose Hall to New Amsterdam - 1 hour. Stand in line at Scotia Bank. Get money. Then do the whole thing in reverse back to Orealla.

This time however, I didn't have to. When that group from Skeldon came to visit, they offered to take my bank card and give it to one of the elders from their congregation, who conveniently works in New Amsterdam. They would have him get my money out and then all I'd have to do is step off the boat, pick up cash, then do whatever I wanted to after that. I was pleased by this offer, and asked if there was anything I could do to express thanks.

"Could you bring us to or three pieces of cassava bread?"

"Um... okay."

So I began asking around the congregation if anyone had cassava bread that I could give to a sister in Skeldon. When I left for the boat, I had so much cassava bread that it filled up a backpack.

Of course, the insane generosity was far from finished. See, I now had around eight hours in Skeldon to kill, since I needn't go all the way to the bank. A brother who lives near the wharf offered to let me simply crash at his house. Within a few minutes I had been given cook-up rice, beans, chicken, Pepsi, roasted peanuts, Coke, two cups of coffee, and some drink I'd never heard of called Lemon Wash.

By this point, I no longer wanted anything else. And they kept giving me stuff. It eventually got to the point of saying "Please stop giving me food! I don't want anymore!"

I can't say that's the implication of the scripture (especially since the revised edition reads "nothing lacking", not "no more want"), but living with a people as incredibly generous as the Guyanese certainly gives you a unique look at that verse.