Living Close to God Leads to Generosity
Prayer: Dear God, open my heart to receive what you want me to receive. Amen
Generosity is not a natural state of being for most of us. We are not innately generous creatures. Rather, we are endowed with an orientation to survive and we give survival our own definition. Underneath any façade we might project, we are inherently self-centered, self-protecting and self-perpetuating creatures.
Our culture supports and nourishes this orientation to life. We save and invest our money to protect and care for ourselves and our families, thinking we might need these resources in the future. We feel safer when we have this backlog of funds. Since we cannot know what the future holds for us, the larger the cushion we have at our disposal, the more comfortable we feel.
Yet, for some reason, or lack of reason, we feel no amount is enough, so we become selfish. Rather than sharing the resources we have acquired with those whose resources are far less than ours, we hold on to most of what we have in order to maintain a standard of living we wish to enjoy. There is always in the back of our minds the fear that we may experience a tragedy and need everything we have, plus more.
Where is our confidence in God’s active involvement in our lives? We live with excessive fear that we are alone and expected to take care of ourselves. It is almost a universal way of living among the “haves”. We tend not to live gratefully and generously, although it is God’s wish for us. Living gratefully and generously both cares for the needy and fills our own hearts with deep joy. If this process designed by God is carried out, everyone is blessed. We become reoriented to focus on our blessings rather than on our desires.
The truth is, from God’s perspective, we do not even own what we possess. Rather, we are only given charge of it in order to disperse it as God directs. This custodial responsibility is a far cry from ownership. Our typical perception of ownership is a cultural affectation into which we all have bought, in varying degrees, dismissing God’s plan and desire.
However, living closer to God releases our culture’s grip on us, setting us free to become generous with all of its cumulative benefits. Living closer to God changes our perceptions of everything, including and especially our way of viewing our own source of security. Our security ultimately is in God. We grow in our trust in God, and become more generous when we learn to live closer to the Holy One.
