Yesterday was ‘Giving Tuesday‘, explained as a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.” (www.givingtuesday.org) Created in 2012 as a simple idea to encourage and celebrate generosity as well as philanthropy, it has become a a focal point of fund-raising on the calendar of every development office.
If you did not hear from your Alma mater throughout the year because you directed their emails to your spam account, this is the one day that such communications will override your settings and fill up your inbox. Perhaps it is just God smiling on those earnest pleas for donations and gift-matching from every known and unknown non-profit. Surely it is no coincidence that it comes just after we have come together to express gratitude to God for innumerable blessings while over-indulging at Thanksgiving; and right in the middle of the often-excessive, seasonal splurging on holiday gifts.
All well and good. Generosity in any form is often appreciated and there is no doubt that it goes towards a lot of good. However, as Christians, we are called to a perpetual spirit of thanksgiving to God and continual charity to our fellow-man, especially those bearing burdens of all stripes. While we celebrate gratitude and generosity on designated days along with mankind, ours is a life-long calling that becomes increasingly manifest as we grow in our realization of divine grace and mercy.
For what do we have, that we have not been blessed with? What have we acquired that grace and mercy did not play a role in facilitating? Who has spared our lives, kept us in good health and given us the opportunity to earn a living, grow wealthy or achieve success? Who is certain of what tomorrow holds so that they can gloat with confidence about what today has?
Furthermore, if we truly believe that all good things come from above, how righteous or holy have we been that God should be so generous to us? Do we DESERVE all that God has blessed us with? It is only the mind that has not wrapped itself around the ramifications of God’s mercy that gloats in self-adulation. “There go I but for the grace of God” is the spirit behind the generous Christian.
In the gospel narrative of the poor widow who gave her all, Jesus elevated sacrificial giving and panned the boastful generosity of the rich man. In doing this, He helps us to understand the way He assesses generosity. We come to understand that God does not place as much priority on the ‘what’ or the ‘ how much‘ as He does on the ‘how‘. God measures the ‘how’ via the disposition of the soul while doing good. The attitude with which we give and the degree of care and attention shown to the recipient of a charitable act can make or break the generosity we are exhibiting.
It may be helpful to flesh out the possible parameters that God uses to assess our different acts of generosity. We can start: What – least important; Quantity – giving from abundance or sacrificial giving; Mindset – proud/boastful or grateful to God/humble; Implementation (How)- act done with agape love and respect or with detachment/lack of common courtesy; Motive – earthly reward/recognition/fame or human reciprocation or heavenly reward. So much to ponder upon……
We have read in scripture that God loves a generous heart. With the insight and help of His holy spirit, we will learn and become conformable to the generosity that pleases Him the most. Having said all this, we must remind ourselves that the most important gift we can ever give God is our will. If we say we have given ourselves to God and we hold back our will, wanting our own desires and will above His will and plans, we are still drinking the milk of immaturity. When we yield to God’s ways above our natural inclinations, we are emulating His first-born, Jesus, and manifesting ourselves as joint heirs with His Son.
As Paul wrote repeatedly, yielding to God’s way in our everyday decisions and actions is not always easy…..but when we do this, against all the urges of our natural flesh, it is sacrificial giving…and that pleases God.
Hilltop Thoughts, Valley Strengths 