Generosity

Greetings all! Here are some thoughts ...

I was having a daydream - one of the best sort. I imagined just what a wonderful person I would be, if only I found a treasure chest (or inherited an astonishing amount or just became incredibly successful). As a consequence, I would have millions and billions to throw around, proving to the world what a great, noble, and generally pleasant person I am.

My plan I daydreamed was something like this: I would pop all my hard-earned treasure in the bank, use the interest as my living allowance (cos you don't REALLY need a whole lot to live on, if you don't waste it on rubbish), and then - my crowning glory - I would give away huge amounts of money. I would be generous! Charitable! Love-filled and blessing the world!

What a wonderful man I am. Or would be, if only I won the Lottery.

And so I realised the truth: I'm not really great, noble and generally pleasant; I am a hypocrite. When I write it down like this it seems so obvious, but I realised that being generous when it doesn't cost me is not generosity at all. Where is my integrity?

This is the process I am in at the moment. I may never end up being super-crazy-wealthy or anything, and that's okay, cos generosity should never be based on affluence, should it? (check out the Widow's Offering in Mark 12:41-44). As I thought about it, I realised that it's not even about money - often the most generous thing to give is not our cash but our energy, our work, our quality time. Sometimes giving money - being 'charitable' - is actually the easy way out, with very little real cost involved.

So this is me. I'm trying to learn to be generous - in lots of different ways - now. To have it as part of my character. Generous people in the past have often been called 'philanthropists', and I love that word - philanthropist (in Greek) literally means 'lover of people'. That's what I want to be.


BIBLE PASSAGES TO LOOK AT:
- James 1:17
- John 3:16
- Acts 20:36
- 2 Corinthians 9:6-11