Season of Giving?

I was listening to the radio (yes, I still listen to the radio) and reading through emails and saw and heard a whole gaggle of opportunities to give to charities, ministries, and causes. I heard the phrase “season of giving” more than once. It triggered the thought that I’ve heard this phrase often in November and December of past years.

Now I understand the point. We celebrate Thanksgiving and give gifts at Christmas. It is the end of the fiscal year for many organizations, and they are trying to meet budget. It makes sense that there would be a push for giving at this time of year. And yet…it also makes me sad.

The Sage in the book of Proverbs has a fair amount to say about giving (here are a few samples):

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
    but he who is generous to the needy honors him. (14:31)

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord,
    and he will repay him for his deed. (19:17)

Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed,
    for he shares his bread with the poor. (22:9)

This is recorded in a book of wisdom. The key implication of this is that generosity is a practice of wisdom.

Paul tells us that God loves a “cheerful” giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). The context tells us that cheerful is the attitude of the giver, in contrast to being compelled – by guilty, by duty, by fear. The prior verse, however, tells us that God rewards generous givers. This aligns with other teaching in both the Old and New Testament. If we are reading our Bibles regularly this is no surprise.

What surprises me (and makes me sad) is that the idea of a “season of giving” is so common in ministry circles. There should be no season of giving for Christians – it’s all a season of giving. God has been extraordinarily generous to us in Christ, and Jesus promises that God will provide for His followers. To be sure, need will always outpace our ability to meet it. Nevertheless, I wonder how much difference the Church would make if the Church (that means you and me) lived into real generosity all the time, not just in the “season of giving.”

Pursue Christ – He is enough,

            Pastor Jeff

Resilient

Black cottonwoods trees amaze me. They are hard to manage in a yard because they grow like crazy, but as an example of resilience, they are truly a marvel of God’s creative genius. Why do I say this? The other day I was loading up a bunch of branches that we cut up after our November “bomb cyclone” and found several branches with new growth on them.

“So?,” you say. Think about this. These branches, each only a couple of feet long, have been disconnected from a trunk or root system of any kind for 4 months and in the dead of winter. Now they are sprouting leaves and still without a root system. Do some reading on black cottonwoods, they are amazing at regenerating. That is what I call resilience!

Resilience is a necessary component of the Christian life as well. We experience disappointment, we experience loss, we experience our own sinfulness, we experience harm from others, we experience spiritual warfare. In each case, the encouragement from Scripture, and from the testimony of the Church, is to press on. The New Testament has a lot to say about endurance and perseverance (Hebrews 10:36 is one pretty clear statement, “for you have need of endurance…”). I think that resilience is a companion principle, perhaps an essential element, to endurance and perseverance. How can we endure if we can’t recover from challenges and failures?

Like endurance and perseverance, I believe that resilience is a practice. If I am correct, then, we need to be able to identify and practice the set of disciplines that aid us in resilience. This all begins for me with a set of verses that has been a point of reflection for most of my life: Proverbs 3:5-8:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Pursue Christ – He is enough,

            Pastor Jeff