Robert Lupton spent twenty years of his life directing a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that helped urban poor to live productive and self sustaining lives. He made this statement, "The greatest poverty is the inability to give." In our culture the everyday message from advertising to personal conversation seems to focus on what we can get for ourselves.
Recently I read a small book by Randy Alcorn entitled The Treasury Principal. The essence of this book for me was again the value in our lives of giving especially in the area of our financial resources.
What I am reading and experiencing is the deep sense of meaning in life that comes when we have the freedom to give in all aspects of life...time, money, friendship, etc. I like to use the example if you are a believer that one of God's character qualities is giving and when we give it is as if we become a conduit of His life flowing through us to another and in the process a deposit of that Eternal Life is left in us.
Giving is one of the great evidences of freedom in our lives. We rarely give when we operate in fear, anxiety or depresssion and yet, for anyone suffering in any of the three aforementioned conditions, giving might result in some real help when they can look outside themselves. What they may need most is a deposit of that Life into their own.
Paying it forward, giving without expectation of return, is another expression of the hope and freedom that comes from giving. I would love to hear from you about how giving has unintentionally become a vehicle of encouragement in your life.
