What If...

 I was reading an article the other day that stated that "Candy sales for Halloween 2011 were $2.3 billion, a new record, according to the National Confectioner's Association (NCA)." "And what about kids? The average Jack-O-Lantern bucket holds about 250 pieces of candy amounting to about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar, according to the California Milk Processors Board." WHAT!!! Is anyone else astounded by these statistics? I mean what would it looked like if I, if you took the money we would spend on candy and costumes and invested it into a child, a child in need, a child who was hungry. WHAT IF, instead of pumping our children full of sugar and empty calories, we would instead fill up a child in need, with nourishment, instead of going to sleep hungry they would go to bed with a full tummy. I look around at this world of ours and I think what are we doing, what am I doing? We care, I care more about what costume I will dress my child in, instead of my "neighbor" who sits hungry, or the child across the world waiting for their next meal, not knowing when that may be. WHAT IF, we took that money and invested it into a child's future. WHAT IF instead of putting our money towards this:


 
We invested our money in this, a child in need:

This is not something we do if we feel like it, or something we do if we are thinking about it, or something we do around the holidays. No, this is something our God has required of us. James 1:27 states, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." These are not just children, but God's children, God's precious treasures. The world would have you believe, me believe that Halloween fun, candy and costumes are more important than these children, but God says different. What will you be spending money on this Halloween?