“Keep on Casting your Bread upon the Water"

There is a story told of a Native American Indian who in the early days of the settlement of America came to the inn at Litchfield. He was asking for some food and a place to stay the night. He was upfront with them that he had no money to pay. The landlady said that she could not help him and was driving him away when a kind settler who was there stopped her and said that he would pay for this man’s food and a night in the inn. The Native American Indian was truly grateful and told the settler that one day he would repay him.

Many years later the kind settler was taken prisoner by a hostile tribe and was carried far away by them and enslaved. One day an Indian came to him, gave him a musket, and ordered him to follow him. They walked day after day yet he never let the kind settler know that the object of their journey was not where it would end. After many days, they came upon a beautiful area of farmland with many houses. The kind settler recognized that this was close to his home. He asked his guide, “Do you know this place?” “Why of course I do. I was the starving Indian on whom, at this very place, you took pity. Now I have paid for my supper, and I pray you go home.”

Sometimes, we do not see the benefit of a good deed for many years. Over time we might even get discouraged in doing what is right. I just want to encourage you to keep on doing what God has called you to do. As Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 tells us, let’s keep on casting our bread upon the water. You never know how and when it might return unto you.