Give

I just spoke to a friend who has an outstanding bill. As I thought about her non-emergent bill that is weighing on her a bit I thought, if I had the money, I would pay it for her, and then I thought- What if I got a $2000 check in the mail, would I give it to her? Hmmm… I really could use that check myself and when I said “if I had the money” I really meant “If I had the money in excess of my own current pressing bills.”

But that’s not the attitude of love. I am to sacrifice my needs to share with my sister to lighten her burdens. Now my sister who I refer to lives on the other side of the country from me. So what? I could mail her the check if I had it. 

If I get a $2000 check in the mail, what would I normally do with it? Normally I would save some, spend some on leisure and pay some bills. I wouldn’t usually try to figure out who may need the money, especially if I could use it myself.

Normally if I did that, in the back of my mind I would think- $2000 is awful generous, she may give it back to me somehow one day- but if that is my thought, then that too is the wrong attitude. I am to share generously and freely with others as a need arises.

Why is this basic thing so foreign to me?  Maybe because I hold the $ bill in such high esteem?  Because the thought of giving away a large sum of money that I could use myself sounds foolish? In actuality it is the foolishness of love that cannot be explained in natural human terms. It is counterintuitive to my natural decisions to give away what I feel I need to survive.

So why would I not freely give it to her? Maybe because I don’t trust God enough?   I do not trust the creator of all to give me what I need if I give my next lump sum of money to someone else.  It’s fear. But that is not what I should fear. Rather I should fear selfish desires and vanity. I should trust, rest in the fact that when I earnestly love others, I am fulfilling my greatest responsibility as a human.   Honoring God is what I would say is my highest responsibility, but he tells me that if I love him, I will do this one thing- love others, or my allegiance to him is a lie.

If someone needs $20 from me on the spot and I have it in my pocket, my normal response is to consider if they really need it, then lend it with the intent to get it back. I even had a hard time not typing if someone needs to “borrow” $20 because the idea of just giving it is foreign.

I need to be a better free giver. Kind words are free and I do not struggle with that as much, most days, and I would consider myself a fairly generous person, but fairly generous is not good enough.

I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but what I am going to work on this year is giving and not lending.

That’s another way I can do better at loving others.