As we enter the holiday season, I think we come into it from all different angles. Some of us are super excited! Some of us are a little depressed. Some of us are hopeful. Some of us are so overwhelmed with our schedules that we simply don’t feel anything at all. No matter where we are coming from this Christmas season, I believe there is something deep inside us that wants to be generous, but unfortunately many of us will try really hard and still feel like we fail. This Christmas I invite us to take the generosity challenge. A challenge not to give more, but a challenge to address our hearts so that generosity can be unlocked in and through us.
To start with, let’s look at the definition of generosity:
- Willingness to give what one has
- Freedom from meanness or smallness of mind or character.
I think the definition is such an important part of understanding generosity – because it is so much more than giving stuff or money that we have. I don’t know if you have ever found yourself in this place, but you knew you should help someone out, maybe you felt like you should call that person because they were going through something tough or you knew you should help your friend with their homework but you just didn’t feel like it. You were wrestling through it and maybe you even started to do something sacrificial. And then you started doing things out of I should be doing this instead of I want to do this and then you lost interest in it and it turned into on obligation and eventually that obligation turned into something you resented.
My assumption is that generosity (what we give of our time, money, and resources) starts with the condition of our heart. Here is the deal, in personal life, the times where I have not had the desire to help other people or to lift other people have been the times where I have been hurt, numb, or confused. I didn’t want to help people because of how I felt my life was going. What if generosity is really a picture of one’s heart and the space that one has for someone else. Also, what if the reason people are not generous is that they are deeply insecure and need to possess in order to try and keep their heart full. Their resources – time, expertise or knowledge, their ability to welcome in others, their finances – are to be protected because if they were gone there would be little left to actually fill their heart. In other words, our lack of generosity is a picture of how empty we truly are.
If you find it difficult to feel generous this season or throughout the year, maybe you should examine your heart, the space you have in it to care, to love, to invest. Maybe you need to care for your heart and help it heal from disappointment, hurt, and abandonment. Maybe you need to give yourself a break from obligation and trying really hard to be generous and focus on your heart and motivation.
Join me this season for the generosity challenge as we focus not on giving more, but on healing, nurturing, and growing your heart so that for the next year you can live a generous life.
Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.