When Megan was in third grade, she kept coming home from school without her winter gloves. It drove her mom crazy because she had to keep buying new ones, which the family couldn’t afford. One day Mom got angry and said, “Megan, you’ve got to be more responsible! This can’t go on!”

Megan began to cry. Through her tears she told her mom that because she kept getting new gloves, she gave hers away to kids who didn’t have any.

Now that she is eighteen years old, Megan’s hobbies include volunteering in the community and mentoring inner-city kids. Referring to her desire to help people, she said that it “felt like that was the kind of thing I was supposed to be doing.”

As Christians, we are to have a heart of giving. James gives us a practical way for us to give of ourselves: “Look after orphans and widows in their distress” (V. 27).

Ask God for a heart like Megan’s. Out of love for God, obey what He tells you to do. It’s what we’re “supposed to be doing.”