Give and Wait

Recently I was reminded of Jesus’ words on giving.

Jesus says in Luke chapter six, verse 38: “Give, and it will be given to you a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

In our faith we are called to give as much as we can, as many times as we can and we will be blessed immensely – more than we can imagine. And if anyone but Jesus were giving that incentive, I would argue it assumes that as we give we are only thinking about ourselves and our reward for giving.

However, I think that my initial reaction is skewed from an Earthly perspective. Throughout our lives, we are taught how to share and how to be kind to one another, but then something switches. We begin to think about how we can get ahead and how helping others will only delay our goals and accomplishments. Being sacrificial with our time and our resources is frowned upon. The whole concept of sacrifice has become a sign of weakness or people pleasing.

But, as I think through Jesus’ words with my experiences, I can wholeheartedly say giving is selfish.

Giving my time to make sure a youth knows I care and support them allows me to build deeper relationships with these students.

Taking a week to serve those less fortunate allows me to gain new skills and, most importantly a new perspective that I bring back with me.

Donating precious financial resources to a cause allows me to remember how much bigger God is than just me, and that I impact someone else’s life.

As I continue reading over this Scripture, I want to change the opposite of give in our vocabulary. I know it sounds crazy because at a very young age we learn that the opposite of give is take, but the giving we are called to is a lot more cyclical. What if we start thinking that the opposite of our giving is waiting?

So the cycle becomes giving all that we can, when we can - to waiting and watching for how God uses our gifts - to finally in God’s timing, receiving our unexpected blessings, which in turn can continue into our next opportunity for giving.

I know giving is what we are called to do and it may look different every single time, but as we approach North Texas Giving Day, I think about all Feed Lake Highlands is asking for.

One box truck and one 15-passenger van.

It’s a big ask, and a big opportunity for giving. Each person’s giving may look a little different, but what I can guarantee is that you will enter into the cycle of giving, waiting and receiving.

If you give financially on North Texas Giving Day, you can partner with Feed Lake Highlands in the waiting process to see what God has in store, and then you will receive blessings immensely as we celebrate serving our program members well.

And I understand finances are one of the hardest things to let go of, but I know that we can be sure that God will give it all back with good measure and blessings will be poured into your lap.

So, please prayerfully consider donating to Feed Lake Highlands at northtexasgivingday.org on September 20th.