On Sunday night, TJ and I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on generosity at the CCC All-Staff BBQ. A couple people who were not in attendance have expressed interest in knowing what we shared, so I decided to do a little write-up for them and for other interested parties.
TJ opened by expressing our heartfelt gratitude and excitement about being a part of a church that encourages generosity in us by being a generous church itself and by giving us more and more opportunities to give. He then shared a few of the “bigger” ways we have been generous during the past year, with specific emphasis on opportunities that have arisen within the context of our small group. As a group we have been able to help buy a family a vehicle; help pay rent for a group member’s brother who was in the hospital for several months and lost his job but still had a family to support; support a group member’s coworker whose daughter is serving in Afghanistan; and most recently help pay rent for a church attender who serves on the videocast team and who hasn’t been able to cover basic needs due to the un-smiley face of the economy.
After a little more big-picture talk, I went into the details when it was my turn to share because I love details. I talked about two examples of smaller forms of generosity, one from a few months ago and one from the other day.
The few-months-ago example occurred during a trip to Whole Foods back in the spring. I was in there to pick up a few things and had brought along a coupon for $10 off any $50 purchase. I wasn’t really needing enough stuff to add up to $50 but let’s be honest, it’s not that hard to spend $50 in Whole Paycheck. At the same time I was figuring in my mind what additional things I could buy to get up to $50, I thought of a good friend of mine who has to shop at Whole Foods a lot more frequently than I do due to some special dietary needs of her daughter. And I thought of how I could give the coupon to her and it would probably benefit her a lot more than it would me. But then I thought of how I wanted the coupon for myself. I had one of those moments of crisis just then, and what does a woman do in a moment of crisis? She speed-dials her husband. I stopped right in the middle of Whole Foods and called TJ, but he didn’t answer (the small crowd chuckled at this point, where were you TJ?)
God must have had him not answer because God wanted to be the voice to speak to me instead. I had this thought come into my mind just then – If you err on the side of being generous, it will never be the wrong choice. I had my answer just as plain as day, and as simple as give and you won’t be wrong. So I got out of the store without spending a small fortune that day, mailed the coupon to my friend, and took away a line of thinking that has stuck with me ever since.
The more recent example was just last week, one day when both kids were napping and I was sitting on the couch thinking. That’s what I like to do when the kids are asleep. I sit there and look out the window and watch the cars and the neighbors and think about stuff. I read my Bible sometimes and I journal sometimes, but always I think.
That particular day I was looking around our living room at our two big bookshelves from IKEA that are filled with books, more books than any two people could read or need. I thought about how much we have, not just books, but in other areas too. I thought about our pantry and how at any time of day or night I can go into the kitchen and get whatever I want to eat without a second thought. I go to the grocery store a couple times a week at least and buy things we like and keep our fridge and pantry stocked so that when we’re hungry, we are taken care of. And then I thought of the person we know who has been relying on a food pantry for help and who can’t just go out to eat whenever he wants or buy what he prefers at the grocery store. And then, finally then, I had the so-not-novel, but so-this-is-my-moment thought, This isn’t right. You know how we each have our moments where the thing we’ve heard a thousand times becomes the one time we really hear it? And that was it for me. This isn’t right that I can have whatever I want to eat all the time and this other person is going without basic things. And now what am I going to do about it?
This little occurrence in my otherwise uneventful day opened up a whole new dialogue between TJ and myself when he came home from work. We talked about the idea of sacrifice, and how we could sacrifice things we like, specifically in the category of groceries since that is an area that is a bit more flexible than say rent or electricity, in order to have more money to give away to people who are not as blessed (materially) as we are.
I thought first of how we could garden more in order to have less vegetables to buy. Now I’m not trying to say everyone should garden (although TJ added in here, yes, we are!), but that for me, gardening would be one answer to not spend as much money at the grocery store, and still get to eat veggies aplenty.
My second somewhat silly yet somewhat serious example was about the salsa we buy at Trader Joe’s. It’s the Smoky, Spicy Peach Salsa and it’s some kind of good. Has anybody out there tried it? (And I got a few nods.) Well those little jars are $2.29 a piece. And they’re little. Like probably 10 of them would add up to the big honking jar of Costco salsa which is only $4.99. It’s mango, not peach, though. But do we have to be so particular? Are we allowed to be so particular? Some people don’t have money to buy their own food and I’m having to always have my peach salsa in the fridge just in case on some particular night I feel like chips, guac, and salsa. So this little area, the little jars of peach salsa, is something where we can sacrifice. I think we can still buy it from time to time as a treat, but it doesn’t have to be our everyday salsa. I can be okay with the mango salsa from Costco, or no salsa at all for that matter.
After the salsa talk, I went on to talk about how some of the financial giving we’ve done in the past year has been from TJ’s income, while some has been from the money we have in savings that is from the sale of our house in Orlando. When we sold our house, we put that money in savings to go toward buying our next house. We’ve been renting ever since, so that money has been sitting there and has come in quite handy to allow us to give generously to some things we may not have been able to otherwise. I am very thankful we have that extra money so that we can give more, but at the same time, I feel like it’s easy to view that money in savings as out there somewhere and not very connected to our daily standard of living. I think the recent realization about sacrifice has brought me to ask myself and to ask TJ, does it count if it costs us nothing? It doesn’t technically cost us nothing when we give from savings but it kind of feels that way. And I don’t like the way that feels.
I want my giving to cost me something. I want to not eat peach salsa and know that because I’m going without, someone else is going with.
The other thing I realized through mine and TJ’s dialoguing over sacrifice and salsa was that a lot of people who are not Christ followers would probably give in very similar ways as how we have given. The “big” and the “small” things we talked about are not all that uncommon, and I think there are plenty of people who, just out of the goodness of their hearts, would help out a neighbor or a friend who couldn’t pay their rent. This last realization made me feel challenged yet again, not just to sacrifice, but to be generous in ways that are not normal. I want mine and TJ’s giving to make people say That’s not normal. Yeah, maybe I’d help out my neighbor who needs help with their car repairs, but give them my car? That’s not normal. I think that is what the world needs to see from us who are Christ followers. Not just normal giving, but big (call ‘em radical if you want) sacrifices that reflect back on the big God we are following.
In closing, I shared about how I feel thankful that what is also happening for me and TJ right now is that we are seeing the same things differently than we did even a few months ago. For example, at the beginning of the summer, we canceled our cable because our shows were over and we didn’t think we would need to be watching much TV this summer. We did that as a way to save money, but never did we talk of saving that money in order to give it to someone else. Now, though, that is what I’m thinking. When I give up something, it’s so that someone else can receive. It’s not so that I can feel good about myself for being good at saving.
I finished up my sharing with a quote from C.S. Lewis that I heard years ago and have never been able to forget. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. Let me say it again. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. It doesn’t make sense that when we give more and sacrifice more, we will feel our lives expand and we will feel so rich. God says we are blessed when we give and God is not one to tell a story. Why would we not give? And that’s about all I had to say.
TJ wrapped up with a few more good thoughts: like for someone to receive, someone has to give; for someone to be fed, someone has to provide food; if someone somewhere benefits, then someone somewhere paid something. That’s some good truth being told. TJ also reminded us all that if we live in America, we are rich. Not just rich. Filthy rich. And that’s taking into account the fact that we personally make less than the median income in America. Rich. Rich. Rich. Which is not the norm when you consider all the people in the world. 20% of the world lives on $1.00 a day and 50% of the world lives on $2.00 a day. And we spend that much on the smoothies I make every morning. Just a little something, I mean a big something, to think about.
