Growing in Generosity

As a kid I began mowing lawns and making a good amount of money in the summer. I watched as my stockpile of money grew and grew.  I began to plan on all the things that I wanted to buy.  I had a list of all the baseball hats I wanted.  (Yes, this was well before I turned my back on baseball, after which my heart was changed back years later with our Cardinals.)  I also collected baseball, basketball, and football cards.  I had over 300 Michael Jordan cards, and I was always looking for the next bump up in the collection.  This was also the beginning of my love of music, so I had a list of CDs I wanted to buy as well.  Back then, music companies had special offers where you could get a certain number of CDs for a low price if you bought one for the next six months.  I was always looking for those ways of increasing my CD collection.  Not to mention, more CDs meant more CD towers to hold all of them.  I had figured out exactly how much money I was going to make, and had written out my plan of what I was going to do.  (I know this may come as a surprise to some of you that I had a systematic way of preparing for all the things I was going to buy.)  Anyway, I remember telling my dad about my plan.  I told him that by the end of the summer I was going to give ten percent of all the money I had made to church, because I would have made my last purchase by then.  I remember my dad specifically saying, “Will, if you do that you won’t have that money left to give; it is better to give first.”  There was some confusion in my head of why this was true.  But I took it is as truth.  Throughout my life it has been confirmed why this is true.  It was not like the number on my lists of baseball hats, CDs, or cards was going to get smaller.  With every new thing I bought, it was kind of like a drug, luring me to purchase more.

            In my recent Tuesday night Bible study we talked about this.  Several of us agreed that we don’t seem to get enough of the excitement of purchasing things.  It is hard to explain, but there is something to be said about the feeling you get when you buy a new shirt, new music, a new car, a new house, or new furniture.  It is a natural desire, built in by our selfish, sinful nature, the result of which is to satisfy ourselves first and everything else later.  Early in our faith walk many of us react just like I did.  I will give to God when I have more, or have bought everything that I want.  It is through biblical teaching that we see the practice and understanding of generosity that God teaches us about giving.  Every time we give, we let go of something we hold onto so tightly.  This is best seen through the eyes of children.  Think about little children playing with toys.   So often they are quick to tell other children that the toy in their arms is theirs.  They own it!  It belongs to them!  Often, we too want to say, “This is mine.”  Yet, in reality, everything we have is what God has given us.  Sometimes when kids are first taught to share, they throw the toy at the other person.  Trust me, Jacob and Gavin have both been hurt by an iPad toss from his brother.  Sometimes our own giving can resemble throwing it at God.  We think, Ok, I give.  I am supposed to share.   Here you go, God.  If we begin to think of earth like a hotel room, we realize there are things that are necessary in a hotel room, but none of them are ours except what we brought.  In this case it is just our selves.  When we look at Heaven as our home, we realize God is putting all kinds of things in our heavenly room that we truly need.  None of it will be because we are selfish, and all of it will be what we really need.

            This is Genius of Generosity at work as we begin to see earth and all the stuff we have here as temporary goods.  The amazing thing in all this is that God continues to give to us even in our lack of generosity.  He continues to bless us, and as we come alongside and live in that atmosphere of generosity, we recognize the depth of His love in the way He gave to us.  So, I still have over 300 Michael Jordan cards, but I no longer have magazines to tell me what they are worth.  Some time ago I thought my kids would love to have them.  The reality is that those basketball cards sit in a box in my parents’ garage.  I haven’t looked at them in years, and if my mom threw them away I probably wouldn’t care.  Funny how God changes our perspective over time!  This weekend I pray that God changes all of our hearts so we can become Geniuses of Generosity.