The Cheerfulness of Obedient, Smart Giving

We have an abundance of “smart” electronics these days, don’t we? Smart phones. Smart cars. They weren’t designed to keep us from having to actually be smart, though! I’m talking today about giving, and how we can give intelligently by giving OBEDIENTLY.

There’s really a difference, you know. The difference is the fruit that is borne from the seed we sow. Generosity is a noble and wonderful trait (the Bible says for us to be givers!) when it works in tandem with obedience to God. We should indeed be cheerful and liberal givers; but it’s doubly important that we listen for God’s instructions, because foolish generosity is, well, FOOLISH. The whole of that text says this (I love the Voice Translation of 2 Cor. 9:7): Giving grows out of the heart—otherwise, you’ve reluctantly grumbled “yes” because you felt you had to or because you couldn’t say “no,” but this isn’t the way God wants it. For we know that “God loves a cheerful giver.” When our giving is God-directed, it is smart giving; obedient giving which isn’t given for ulterior motives, or given out of guilt or compulsion or a need to just feel good!

A generous parent, for instance, can harm his or her child through excessive giving not tempered by wisdom. Would you give your child candy for breakfast just because he or she wants it? Of course not! But would you breed a materialistic appetite in your child by enabling him or her to get every single thing the child wants, just for the asking? Do you operate in fear of not being your child’s friend, when in reality, your child needs you to set boundaries, to say no once in a while? Following God’s direction will keep perfect balance instead of making the child entitled, spoiled, selfish, wasteful. You can actually TEACH your child by anointed example as you give wisely. This applies in every area of our lives, not just parenting! Sometimes we have to say no to ourselves! I know I sure do! Read on.

Remember the song, “What a Friend We Have In Jesus?” Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer…

That familiar verse perfectly sums up our lives when we don’t listen for His voice! Yes, it’s true. We’ve gotten used to just asking for things…perhaps we need to return to asking for Him to reveal His will in decisions we are facing. It even applies to our giving of our time, talent, and treasure. I know all too well what it’s like to give just because it feels good. The importance however goes beyond my flesh feeling good, and therefore, my motivation must have a higher purpose than gratifying my flesh!

How can one be a selfish giver, you might ask…sounds like an oxymoron! It’s taken and is still taking time and experience, and also a deeper knowledge of my Lord through intimate relationship, to know that responsibility accompanies our ability to say yes. My ability to say NO has in times past gotten me into trouble. Hey Lisa, can you join this club? Can you go here and do that and can you be available at all hours for anything anyone asks? Oh yeah…I’ve been so bogged down with to-do’s which I agreed to in order to be a people pleaser. Then, exhausted, I would find myself bitter at having no downtime, or nothing at all left. Often, I’ve had not one piece of fruit to show for it, because I didn’t have the courage to say, “I’ll get back to you…I really need to talk to God before I commit to this!”

Well, go back to the passage in the Bible where Saul took the spoils of war after God had specifically told him not to…and then he tried to appease God by sacrificing some of the livestock on altars to justify his disobedience of a direct order! Talk about insulting God’s omniscience! The Scriptures tell us that obedience is better than sacrifice. Saul’s disobedience would eventually cost him his kingdom…even his descendants would suffer consequences because of his foolishness. We ourselves can undo all the good of our generosity whenever we sidestep what God has already instructed. Why would we not take the counsel of the One Who actually KNOWS the outcome? When we have His voice, we already have the inside track to what is going to be a blessing, be blessed, and bear fruit!

Bear in mind, He will sometimes direct us to give when it DOESN’T have that euphoric, how-wonderful-it-feels effect! Can we respond when there’s a need in our own life? Can we be as the widow who cooks her last meal for the prophet before there’s evidence we will have enough for ourselves? Don’t stop being generous, for heaven’s sake…but lay your heart and your feelings on the altar and allow Him to direct you to good ground. Even good ground can’t produce its best yield if you cram the seeds too closely together! Give your acts of kindness the best chance for a harvest by being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Instead of it just being said that you’d give someone the shirt off your back, let it be said that you heard from God and responded with the right thing at the right time!

“In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.” Proverbs 3:6 (AMP)

“I Wish,” Said She…

The day had been a hectic one. Drenched in perspiration, blood pressure elevated from hours of one stressful event after another, she looked around at so much left undone. The woman thought of how anyone else’s life must be better than her own. Maybe a winning lottery ticket? She said in her frustration, “I wish. I wish I never had to work again. I wish I didn’t have to cook, to clean up messes, to work on the bills, to be piled high with responsibilities. If money were no object, I’d go somewhere no one knew me and no one was constantly calling or dropping by, wanting something. I wish my feet would never be tired again. I wish I didn’t have to live by the clock and the calendar. I wish my kids were not constantly whining about something. I wish my husband would stop irritating me with his messiness and his sports channel on tv. I wish.”

As she mused what it might be like in different circumstances, she fell asleep sitting straight up on the loveseat. She dreamed of her words coming back to her, and getting everything she’d said she wished. ONLY…

She woke up to find herself much, much older. Her surroundings weren’t familiar, but the sounds and smells and uniformed staff quickly let her know she was in some kind of healthcare facility. It was a nursing home! She looked to her right and saw a wheelchair parked beside her railed bed. And she heard her younger self saying, “I wish I never had to work again.”

An orderly pecked on her door and addressed her as “Ma’am,” announcing that it was lunch time. He raised the head of her bed and placed a tray on her bed table which contained a plate of soft, unrecognizable foods, a cup of coffee, and a bottle of nutritional supplement. Once again, she heard her younger voice saying, “I wish I didn’t have to cook.” It all seemed so surreal. She couldn’t have gotten old overnight! A few bites of the tasteless food had her wishing she were in the kitchen, baking her mother’s heirloom biscuits. The orderly came back and collected her partially-eaten meal. She reached for a tissue to wipe her bed table clean, and he said to her, “That’s ok, Ma’am. I’ll clean it up.” Again, her voice echoed, “I wish I didn’t have to clean up messes.”

The time ticked by as if it were in slow motion. A volunteer came around, delivering mail to each patient. When the small bundle of mail was carried to her bed, she fumbled through to find nothing but junk mail, sale flyers to stores she could no longer visit, and a Medicare statement. “I wish I didn’t have to work on the bills, and to be piled high with responsibilities.”

Later on, after a nurse dispensed several medications and drew some blood, she announced that today was Visitors Day. Excited for any variation in this dull day, the woman sat up a little straighter as the nurse and an attendant gingerly helped her from the bed to her wheelchair. They placed a pair of shoes on her feet which looked as if the soles had never touched the ground. “I wish my feet would never be tired again.” They wheeled her into the activity room with other patients and their visitors. As she waited nervously, the clock suddenly seemed to pick up the pace. She looked around at perfect strangers and wondered where her own family was. At ten minutes before the end of visitors’ time, one of her sons came hurrying through the door, apologizing about how busy he was and how he’d been hauling his boys around to football practice. He seemed restless, as if he were relieved that he’d gotten there almost too late. In the awkward silence, the voice of her past came back again, like a prosecutor: “If money were no object, I’d go somewhere no one knew me and no one was constantly calling or dropping by, wanting something. I wish I didn’t have to live by the clock and the calendar. I wish my kids were not constantly whining about something. I wish my husband would stop irritating me with his messiness and his sports channel on tv. I wish.”

“I haven’t seen your father at all today. I can’t imagine where he is!” she said to her son. He looked at her with tired pity in his eyes and said, “Oh Mama, you don’t remember, do you? Pops has been gone about 3 years now. Heart attack. That’s when you came here to the nursing home. He took good care of you after your stroke, clear up until the day he died. I’m so sorry.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++

“I wish…I wish…I wish.” She was shaking her head and saying the words over and over, when a hand on her shoulder shook her gently out of her sleep. It was her husband, who’d gotten worried when he woke up and saw her side of the bed empty.

“What do you wish, Honey?” he asked. “What were you dreaming about?”

As her eyes adjusted in the dimly-lit living room, she was relieved to see the familiar chaos. Toys strewn on the floor. Bookbags by the door. A stack of bills. A calendar full of appointments and a long store list. As she stood to her feet (she could walk!), she welcomed a twinge of pain from having stood on them so long earlier in the day. All the things which had irritated her before were now welcome signs of life. Tears dripped off her cheeks as she whispered a prayer of repentance for having complained about her life. She truly had so much to be thankful for!

“I wish that every day of the rest of our lives can be as good as this one,” she said, taking his hand.

Do you allow the frustrations of life to rob you of your sense of gratitude? Sure, at times we all need a break, a vacation, a change of pace…but we mustn’t wish away the precious moments which are woven among the hectic ones. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Find the wonderful things about today; give thanks for and cherish them. Gladly accept the bitter just for the privilege of having the sweet, too. Remember, it’s a lot more painful to wish for yesterday than it is to wish for tomorrow. Make today count.

“Teach us to use wisely all the time we have.” (Psalm 90:12 CEV)

An Internal Fountain of Youth

Since I’ve reached a certain median age, it seems as if every mail order company in the Continental U.S. has my address or email. Ten years ago I got trendy, youthful apparel catalogs…now I’m getting life insurance applications, ads for miracle wrinkle and fat erasing creams, booklets full of ugly shoes (which I’ll NEVER be old enough to wear, thank you!), mailers for high-fiber supplements, and yes, brochures for motor scooters. I haven’t even broken fifty yet and already my demographic has changed. Even what little television I watch these days seems to be have its audience pegged for the declining years of life, because all the commercials are for prescription medications and accessibility aids.

So, it is true that each year brings changes to our lives…some subtle and others not so much. The metabolism goes south, our teeth yellow and wear down, we suddenly need either reading glasses or longer arms (smile), and we have to decide to either go gray or fight it to the death. Our society is oh-so-focused on how youthful we can remain, and suddenly we feel that same peer pressure we thought we’d kicked in high school…the struggle to project an acceptable version of ourselves.

We may or may not choose to try to slow the wheels of time for our outer man. For some of us, the changes are too painful to bear, and we exhaust our energy and our pocketbooks just to buy one more year, ten more years, of youth and beauty. Others of us are passively embracing the gradual changes in our appearance, trying to find the humor hidden in the irony of time and gravity. However the transition might personally affect you, be encouraged…for there’s a part of you that is exempt from the ravages of time: your spirit man!

The Apostle Paul revealed a priceless nugget when he penned these words: “Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16 AMP) I love this Scripture in every translation I’ve read, and the Amplified version includes the word “progressively” in both parts of the passage. I daily witness the outer “progressively” when I have to stand in front of that full-length mirror…but I often fail to acknowledge the INNER “progressively”…the one that says I’m brand-new every morning! Regenerated. Reborn. A fresh layer of spiritual skin as blemish-free as a baby’s. My spirit man will not get arthritis, age spots, cancer, Alzheimer’s, or just flat-out old. EVER.

If sickness and age-related conditions have taken their toll on your outer man, I want to encourage you to begin praising the Lord for the one part of your being that cannot be touched by the enemy. Thank God for His Holy Spirit which dwells in your spirit, and begin declaring Scriptures of renewal even on your outer man as you speak in faith. True, unless we go out in the Rapture, eventually all of us will have to taste of death…but we do not have to accept just anything and everything that the enemy tries to heap onto our backs. If you’re even having to face a potentially terminal illness, all the more reason to praise the Lord for that part of you which sickness can never touch—that inner man or woman which lives on even when the outer one starts faltering. As I write this, I’m praying for you to find the strength to bravely face each day, in sickness or in perfect health…always thankful, always determined, always looking to an eternity beyond this one short life.

When I was meditating on all these things a couple of days ago, I believe the Lord allowed me to get a little revelation about 2 Corinthians 4:16. When our spirit is daily renewed here, it is as whole and healthy on this side of Heaven as it will be the day we enter eternity! If you’re daily walking with God, feasting on His Word, talking with your Father, allowing His Holy Spirit to dwell within you and guide your words and choices, you are taking on a renewal of spirit every single day. When we get to eternity, we’ll have that glorified body to match it…but there’s a part of you right now that has absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with it! So stop obsessing over the outside and see that beautiful, created-in-His-image inside!

Confess and receive your daily renewal. Allow the Lord to renew your strength like the eagle’s…and when the outside man starts showing his or her age, allow your vision to re-focus on a deeper, more substantial part of who you were created to be. Rest assured that you have a spirit which, like the mercies of God, is renewed every morning! How’s THAT for an anti-aging formula?

“He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water.” (John 7:38 AMP)

Vine-Ripe Perfection

One thing I look forward to every summer, which I place right up there among the great simple pleasures of life, is a good garden-ripe tomato…you know, one that runs all over the counter top when you cut into it. Oh, I tolerate the store-bought rubber balls in January when I have to have something to round out a sandwich; but honestly, folks, is there anything as tasteless as a tomato speed-grown in some greenhouse, minus real sun and rain, picked green, and shipped off to market?

Just as any fruit or vegetable is at its best when it’s allowed to draw nutrients from rich soil right up to the ripening time, then harvested at its peak of flavor, so it is with the blessings God has prepared for those who love and trust Him. We often get ahead of Him, and interrupt the ripening process by our lack of patience. We wind up then, with a little, puny, less-than-perfect version of what He willed to give us in glorious fullness. Sometimes we even pass His slowly-maturing blessings completely up for a quick fix from some other source, and the ripened blessings fall to the ground uneaten.

Our instant-gratification culture has diluted the purity of quality in pursuit of quick quantity. We seemingly have a lot more (and I say “seemingly”), but more of what, exactly? The result of excess is evident in our bloated egos, our fat bellies, our maxed-out credit cards, and our empty bank accounts. Our spirit man is often as unhealthy as our physical man, for all that overindulgence of substandard things leads to a life lived just short of ever having real completion. It’s like that tasteless tomato…a bite will never cause your eyes to close in satisfaction; it will never drip off your chin the way a blessing delivered in God’s timing would. At best, it will always be just a means to a second-rate end.

If you’re seeking God for a particular desire of your heart, and you can see that He’s already at work cultivating the answer, leave well enough alone and don’t pick that blessing from the vine before its time.

True patience says that we are willing to surrender even the timing of a blessing to God’s wisdom. A mature believer has learned that, given a choice of mediocre and the miraculous, he or she will reap a bountiful, blue ribbon-worthy blessing for having waited. Does it require discipline? Most definitely. Is the reward worth the perseverance? Take the salt shaker, roll up your sleeves and taste the difference for yourself. Ripe is right!

“So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:4 (NLT)