The Art Of Giving

Well, a while back God told me He wanted me to (learn to) be more generous, which was something I was more or less in favour of. I'd quite like to be more generous; in fact, I'd like to be able to be generous as a default position, to be able to be it without having to think about it. And shortly after He said that, I saw a challenge online by an organisation called stewardship to do something generous every day during Lent. Obviously, there was a bit more to it than that. The idea was that I would sign up to receive an email each day with a thought and idea of something to do, some way of being generous that maybe I hadn't thought of before. So I did that.

Which led to the immediate problem for me that I, at that point, didn't check my emails every day, more like every 3 days-so that had to change. Obviously, it wouldn't be good for me to have several to check each time I signed in to my email account. Thankfully, for most of Lent it was no problem-until near the end when I temporarily lost my internet connection. But while I could, I did check every day.

It was an interesting time and challenge to do, ranging from some that were fairly straightforward to some that were really challenging and/or just unexpected. There were some I really thought were completely out of my capability; and I remember thinking a couple of times 'how much money do they think I have?' For instance, there was one time when there was a suggestion to pay for a holiday for someone, which I was somewhat shocked at; but I actually did do that one in a small way. There were others, which didn't cost much, but were just surprising ideas-or, at least, ones that I had never really thought about. For instance, there was a suggestion one day to just send some cards or postcards to friends out of the blue, just to say what they mean to me. Now, if I'd ever had that idea before, I clearly didn't think about it, let alone do it; but it is a really easy thing to do, as well as quite cheap. And, also, actually quite fun. And there were a few which I thought were interesting, but which either I just didn't/haven't got round to yet, or can't think how to do. One was to buy a Bible for Christians in parts of the world where they don't have easy access to them, or just can't afford them; which I still intend to do. And another was to buy a tree for someone. This I thought was an amazing idea, but I just can't think how to do it. I might look into that a bit more; I'm pretty sure that you can buy 'gift trees', where the trees are planted in parks or conservation areas, and the person gets a card to let them know what tree they have. I think I'll do a bit of digging around on that one. There was also at least one I couldn't do, which was to give blood. I can't do it for medical reasons, but I would if I could; and I'm asking here for anyone who doesn't to do it if you can. It's easy and doesn't take long-and could save someone's life. As well as that, you could also register for organ donation-if you want more information about how and why, look here. Thanks for that.

There was the option to register when I had done each one, and when I had ticked the box, it said how many others had done so. One thing I was surprised at was how low some of the numbers were-one of the lowest was for people to start buying fairly traded goods; something I have been doing for years. Now I understand that it might be a bit difficult to change your buying patterns quickly, but I was under the impression that Fair Trade was something that was widely known-especially in Christian circles. Evidentally, I was mistaken about this, so for those of you who might want to learn more, you can find out here. Again, thanks. The other thing I noticed was that a lot of the posts (all were written by different contributors) had very specific desires and aims; so much so, that I genuinely don't think anyone could deal with all of them to the level that each post would wish. And this is fine; I don't think God wants us to do that. I think He is interested in all of these things, and would like us to be aware of them; but He has different ideas and dreams for each of us specifically and that is what He wants each of us to concentrate on; not get stressed and upset that we're not dealing with every single issue in existence. Simply because we can't. And the sooner we get to grips with that, the better for us-and for those we interact with.

That is what I learned primarily through doing this. I learned some things about giving and my attitude to it: that I do it anyway; that it's not as difficult to do as I sometimes make it; and that I need to keep growing in it. But the most important thing I learned is that giving is about relationship, about caring; God would definitely like to work on my attitude to things and money-still-but, ultimately, He wants me to give because He wants me to care for and about others. And when I focus on that, it becomes easier-though not often easy. Yet.