Jeff Lewis told us we are called to our neighbor and nation. Last week we learned that we have a specific call from God. As William Carey was called to his India, so are we to ours. How do we answer our call? By meeting needs with God's love. By giving a cup of cold water in Jesus' name. By treating every problem as a chance to share God's word and God's grace.

It's an attitude first, a way of seeing things. Jesus fed the hungry whenever he found them; he healed the sick wherever he met them; he taught the crowds whenever they asked him or would hear him. He walked through his ministry, meeting the needs he found with the love of God. His life left the greatest legacy in world history.

Now we are called to do the same, so that someone will ask, Are you Jesus?

No other approach to life will bring us such purpose and fulfillment.

Count Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, achieved the highest stature of fame and worldly success. His masterpiece, War and Peace, was heralded as the greatest novel ever written. Tolstoy was rich, titled, in good health, lord over a vast estate, father of a happy family, only to discover at age 50, "I did not know how to live."

He later wrote, "I felt that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life had stopped." He began to contemplate suicide. In his spiritual testament, A Confession, he likened life to a traveler who is chased by a ferocious beast and climbs down a well to safety, only to discover that a fierce dragon is waiting at its bottom for him. To save himself, he grabs a small branch protruding from a crack in the wall, and dangles helplessly. A mouse appears and starts to gnaw through the branch. All will soon be lost.

Just then the man sees a cluster of berries growing nearby. He picks several and swallows them with gusto. How sweet they taste! This, Tolstoy came to see, is the human condition. Hanging between birth and death, we await annihilation. While dangling, we pass the time eating the small pleasures that fall to our lot. Then the branch snaps and we plunge into nothingness.

It's not an inspiring picture. But here's what happened next for Leo Tolstoy. He came to see that the apparent emptiness of our lives is a kind of mercy sent to us to shake us loose from superficial concerns and to call us back to our spiritual roots. Tolstoy called this "a thirst for God." The famous novelist gave the rest of his life to filling that thirst. Ignoring the honors showered on him from around the world, he chose to dress and live in the simple manner of a peasant. He grew his own food, provided spiritual guidance and money to all who asked, and lived out his days in worship and service.

He learned that all we have been given was meant to be given, that we were saved to serve, that we were created to care. That every problem we meet is a chance to love someone God loves.

So look for some spilled apples this week. Someone else will be glad you did, but no one more than you.