Open Wallets, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose

My children and I tease my husband for being easy to part with his money. It’s as though when he walks through the doors of a store an internal switch is flipped turning him into a machine whose sole purpose is to spend money, robotically chanting, “must transact.” 

All joking aside, my husband has taught me a great deal about generosity. In our early days of marriage, a spiritual gifts inventory identified him as having the “gift of giving.” Maybe it was my background in finance, but rather than inspiring me to be generous, his “gift” made me fearful we’d be sharing an expensive future. 

While we provide a symbiotic counterbalance to one another’s tendencies, I had more to learn from him than vice versa. He credits me with teaching him financial discipline, but he’s taught me something more valuable: generosity isn’t just about money, it’s a way of living.

• When hubs gets an email or text, he reads it with a generous view, choosing to believe the sender’s intentions are positive, reading between the lines with favor.

• He recognizes the boon to collaboration and includes others in his creative processes, adding their names to those credited for valuable work no matter how little they contributed to the effort. 

• He shares his knowledge and expertise generously too, patiently explaining to me and others how to change a bike tire (or any other topic he understands) as many times as necessary.

• When friends undertake yard projects or even need assistance with the dreaded house move, he lends his back to the effort for the meager price of good conversation (and maybe a few calories; barbeque chips and Dr. Pepper preferred). 

When the Bible encourages giving and generosity, the verses often pertain to our physical and financial assets. To be sure, supplying the needs of others with those resources is vital. And good. Yet sometimes it feels easier to give money than to part with the other, less tangible resources I hold tightly to. You, too? Perhaps we can expand our view of generosity to more closely align with God’s desires for our shared lives:

• Let’s stop hoarding our minutes by multitasking in the name of efficiency, only to later squander those minutes in mindless, meaningless activities. Instead, let’s be fully present in whatever moment we inhabit, generously giving fellow Image-bearers our time and undivided attention. 

• Let’s stop guarding our hearts from pain and disappointment and instead give ourselves vulnerably, authentically, and interdependently to the relationships God has intended us to share, demonstrating His design for the Body. 

• Let’s stop jockeying for position and instead adopt a posture of humility, graciously lifting one another up and spurring one another onward with the belief that in God’s economy we can all flourish and thrive.

Generosity isn’t an action; it’s a posture, a way of life. Generosity honors and glorifies God because it is an act of faith, requiring the giver to first recognize all that she has. Whether time, talent, or treasure,  It is a gift from above (James 1:17). And then to act on the belief that God’s resources aren’t scarce, so we needn’t stockpile what He has provided for us out of His abundance. 

When we live in a posture of generosity, I suspect we’ll all look a little more like Jesus, our Bridegroom, our Husband, who didn’t just empty His wallet for us: He emptied His very self out of love for us (Philippians 2:7).

–Written by Kirsten Holmberg. Used by permission from the author.