Generosity

"The world asks, 'What does a man own?'

Christ asks, 'How does he use it?' "

Andrew Murray, 1828-1917

South African evangelist

God has been teaching me a lot about contentment and generosity lately.  I do the finances for our family.  I enjoy crunching numbers and paying bills (now, if we had less bills that would be awesome too!) and finding new ways to stretch our money.  But sometimes I get so caught up in how to save for all the stuff in life that we are supposed to save for; like college, retirement, all types of insurances, 6 months emergency savings, a new roof, etc., that I lose sight of what God has called us to do.  It isn't wrong to have these goals, but when we get so caught up in achieving these goals that we withhold opportunities to bless others, then we are in the wrong.  We are to be a generous people, even when we don't feel like we have anything to give.  God has blessed us all with different things and in different ways (hence one of the dangers of comparing what we have with others).  We need to find what God has blessed us with and give it away!

I am learning to be content and to say that "I have enough".  I want to be that kind of person that will gladly and freely give of all that I have.  I want to hold onto my possessions loosely to glorify God with any means possible.  Even if it means to give out of our 6 month emergency savings (which only has about a half of a month in it anyway) to bless someone else.  God is good.  He sees our bank records and knows when we'll be in need ourselves.  

"Contentment is that inner restfulness that says, 'I've got enough.'  Generosity goes a step further and demonstrates outwardly what contentment believes inwardly." Taken from Character Makeover.