Questions that arise around generosity.

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Lynn, Cherice, and I have had a few interesting conversations about the subject of generosity.  In the conversations, some observations and questions have come up that we thought it would be fun to pass on to you for either reflection or response.

Some people are very generous with their time, others guard their private time more carefully.  Some people are generous with their praise, others seldom pass on encouraging remarks or observations.  Some people are generous with their money, others are pretty tight.   Some people are generous with forgiveness and grace, others are more punitive or unforgiving.  Some people are generous with themselves, others withdraw or hide behind a facade.  Some people are generous with their talents and gifts, others are more sparing with their willingness to share these things.  The list goes on and on.  Where do you fit in these comparisons?  In what areas do you see yourself as generous and in what areas do you feel less than generous?  When does generosity come easily to you and when does it come with difficulty? 

Why are  many poor people generally more generous than many wealthy people? 

Did Jesus model a life of generosity?

Does God seem generous in your experience?

What’s the most generous deed ever done for you?  What is the most generous deed you have ever done for another?

Why is giving such a dicey topic to raise in the church community?

Is giving “with strings’ as generous and giving without strings attached?

Is there a connection between gratitude and generosity?

Is there a connection between generosity and happiness?

How does God’s generosity impact your life?  Does God give without strings? 

Hopefully, these questions will spark some thought, conversation, or even a response on this website.  The deeper you are willing to go in dealing with these questions the more profound your experience of them will be.  On Sunday we’ll have some time to consider a couple of these questions during our open worship period.  Have fun! 

A Season of Generosity

One Response to “Questions that arise around generosity.”

  1. Richard Benham Says:
    November 29th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    When we consider whether Jesus was generous or not we may soon get caught in a quagmire of semantics. If” He owns the cattle on a thousand hills?” why did he seem to live in such poverty? If he died a King how-is-it that his crown was onf of thorns?

    It seems that he was quite generous with the wealth of others. He took a little boys lunch and fed the whole crowd with it. Some of the people who traveled with Jesus are reported to have been quite wealthy and he seems to be quite generous in asking strangers to travel along and share the wealth, I have always been generous with my wisdom even when no one asked for it.

    I was in dire need of a fairly large sum of money when I was in college. A dear friend (known to be of great wealth by the community) saw me walking home after class when he pulled his Cadillac over rather suddenly and leaned out the window as shadowed “Richard, I know you are suffering right now, could you use a thousand bucks?

    I was completely blown away because it seemed the Lord had heard my prayers after all because that was exactly how much I had prayed for. “Come over to the house about 3:30 and I’ll have a check ready for you.”

    As you can imagine I was quite elated and it would seem I floated up the stairs to his front porch. He said have a seat here and I’ll go get a check. From where I sat on the swing on the front porch I could hear the birds chirping and children playing and laughing and my good friend and his good wife discussing, at a fairly high pitch, just exactly where that money was going to come from. When a surprisingly surly lady came to the front door with a check rather rudely ripped from a resistant check book, I had decided that my need was not as their generosity and suggested that they could use that bit of money at least as well as I could. It took some strong convincing on both our parts as to who should keep that generous gift but I finally won out and they kept it. What followed was a time of praying and crying and hugging out of which grew a deeper love on both our parts from that day to this.

    Generosity is a hope in the heart that my need to share is met by another’s need to receive.

    I must never offer a bucket of milk to a hungry neighbor after the cow has just stuck her foot in it. Who knows where this line of rhetoric will lead if I let it continue unguided. I will turn the tap of verbal generosity to full off now and let the reader try to decipher to mixed metaphors

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