A Cup of Generosity: The tie between thankfulness and generosity
A Cup of Generosity is a monthly letter from Pastor Dana Karen Reardon and the Grand Canyon Synod Stewardship Team. Feel free to use the posts or PDFs in congregational newsletters, sermons, programming, or any other use. View our archive page, or view our main stewardship page here.
“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Have you ever seen somebody going through a really tough time during Thanksgiving and wondered how they could feel thankful? Or know people who are really poor and wonder how they could be generous?
I remember when I was in India I went to visit a family and all the wife had to offer me for refreshment was bread and butter (and not some lovely naan but plain white American looking bread, although come to think of it maybe that was even more of her generosity since that was what she thought I would prefer.) They had so little and yet there was a generosity of spirit.
What I have learned over the years is that thankfulness and generosity are intrinsically tied together and yet neither has very much to do with one's circumstances or fortunes.
When I retired the first time ( not unusual for pastors) one of the homeless men who came to our soup kitchen gave me a card with $20 in it. My guess is he sold some of his food stamps. I wanted to give it back to him because I knew he had so little. And yet that would have denied him the opportunity to thank me and to be generous.
People who have much and give generously get buildings named after them or streets and yet some of the most generous people I have ever met give not because they are wealthy but because they just want to give or perhaps feel compelled to give by the generous nature of God
I want to be one of those people. Sometimes I think I succeed, but often I worry that if I am too generous I will find myself in need. In those times I only hope that I can come to understand that it just provides an opportunity for someone else to be generous and help me and I have one more reason then to be thankful.
This is really what the Christian life looks like: Thankfulness and generosity to each other and for each other and for the world.
