Generous Living...

"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share" (1 Timothy 6:18)

Generosity is:

• Nice when you are on the receiving end.
• Particularly nice when your kids are involved, either on the giving or receiving end.
• Something that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling when you hear these great stories of other people who are generous.
• Not always so easy to incorporate into our daily lifestyle.
• Totally necessary to incorporate into our daily lifestyle.

It's way too easy to fall into the first three; the latter two are more challenging. But not optional, especially if we call ourselves Christians.

Generous living was the message this morning at church, and the sermon followed a presentation of Shane Claiborne's that he gave at a youth event earlier this summer. This guy (Shane) in my opinion, has it right. He is a phenomenal storyteller and is always up to something related to radical love and living out his faith in the way of Jesus. He has worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, in Baghdad during the 2003 bombing and has been to court in Philly charged with feeding the homeless. Pretty cool, huh?

So after seeing this great film (you can search "Shane Claiborne" on You Tube and see for yourself) we had this great message on generous living which I hope challenged all of us. We can all do better in this department.

How do we do at generous living? I love the definition of poverty our pastor gave in his message. He described poverty in the following way: "Anyone who needs something I have is poor in that area of their life". So for people just tip toeing into sharing who are still clutching their wallets thinking, OH NO, they want my money...there are probably many, many other things they can start with. But a caution, it is just a start, because loving money and loving God are on a collision course with each other. But if we start with the smaller things, gradually we move to being generous with more and more.

The sad thing is, as I think about all the junk I sorted through in Honduras (see my blog post Junk for Jesus) I imagine there were plenty of people who thought they were being generous, but worn out stuff is not sacrificial or even slightly uncomfortable giving. In my mind it doesn't qualify. True generosity carries with it an element of sacrifice whether in time, stuff, money, comfort, giving up having the last word, and the list could go on for a long time.

So how can you start? Well, you can start with the excess to gently work your way in...

Here are a few ideas. This would qualify as generosity 101. Hoarders may have a problem with this.

• How much hotel soap and shampoo do you have sitting around? Find someone who doesn't have any and share it. It doesn't even have to be overseas. There are plenty of people in need, probably right in your community.
• How many pairs of shoes do you really need? (OK,I have a weakness for Birkenstocks,although I do get most of them on EBay). Rather than try and resell on EBay or even at a yard sale, give them away. We only have two feet after all, and some people go barefoot.
• Does your sixth grader really need a cell phone? How much food could that money buy for a family who really is starving? I have met these families first hand, and it is too difficult to distance yourself from it when there are real faces.
• Share your time. Listen. Care. Love.
• Share your talents. Do you have a gift for encouragement? Use it.

OK, you get the idea.

After you master Generosity 101 there are several advanced courses to choose from.

There are plenty of needs. But hey, that's great news. Because it means that we have countless opportunities to live generously.

At the end of September our church will be engaged in a Faith in Action weekend, where we will be serving in our community. I pray that the people involved will discover their generous spirits and will be able to reach people in our community. We all have something to give; love, hope, prayer, a hot meal, a helping hand. And there are many, many in need. Let's be the hands and feet of Jesus. After all, he did all of those things and then some, so why not use him as the model.

Peace.