Generosity

Last night at church the message was on generosity.

“They sold their possessions and shared the money with those in need.” Acts2:45
“But when you give to someone in need… Give your gifts on private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

Generosity is one of those interesting things, ‘cause everyone immediately thinks its all about money. But it’s not. Sure you can and should be generous with your money, but there’s more to it than that. I’m in a position where I have an uncanny ability to get nice Bibles for free (occasionally, not all the time) and this is a nice thing, as it’s cool to get a new Bible, especially one that looks and feels great. But it can become a source of pride.
Recently however, I’ve started giving some of my Bibles away (I still have some spare if anyone needs one), and up to now, I’ve been doing it in private (I’m guessing that blogging about it puts my good deeds in the public arena), and it’s felt really good. It’s amazing how much better a feeling it is to give something away than it is to hoard something you really don’t need.

But I’m getting off on a tangent. Money, possessions and even time are all forms of possible generosity.

But how do you become generous? I’ve found it’s easiest to be aware e of what’s going on around you – it’s easy to ignore needs, but if you start paying attention to what’s going on around you, you might find ways everyday where you can be generous with your money, possessions, time or something else.

And I think generosity breed’s generosity. The more you respond to situations with your generosity, the more situations you’re likely to see. And it’s funny how generosity is often rewarded by generosity.

Now I have no problem with generosity, I’ve found a few different situations recently where I’ve been able to be generous in various ways. And I prefer to be quietly generous - I don’t really like to be the centre of attention (that’s why I love blogging!). The trouble is sometimes my mind has different ideas.

I found myself sitting in church thinking about what was being said about generosity, when my mind began to wander to my recent acts of generosity, and I began to think how nice it would be to get just a little praise for my action. Some sort of recognition for my deeds.

That’s as far as I ever get, ‘cause I really don’t want to have recognition for specific acts – sure I’d love to be known as a generous person – doesn’t everyone? But it causes me some frustration, as I don’t know why my mind gets away from me. But I guess it’s all a part of the journey, and possibly a way to keep pride at bay. If I have this battle going on in my mind, it helps keep me in check, keeps me from bragging about my deeds.

So what’s the point of this post? I don’t really know, I started out thinking I knew what I was going to say, and it sounded pretty good in my head, but ended up being more of a waffling semi self righteous promotion of my own generous self.