LIVING, LEARNING & LOVING during LENT
Lenten devotionals for March and April. We will focus on a different concept each day of the week: Sundays: Resting/Taking Sabbath Mondays: Fasting Tuesdays: Giving Wednesdays: Serving Thursdays: Praying Fridays: Studying/Learning Saturdays: Celebrating/Playing.
First Full Week of Lent: Deepening Faith
March 11 (Tuesday – Giving)
- Scripture: Proverbs 11:25 – A generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water.
- Reflection: Even in our giving, caring for others becomes the ‘why’ of our reason for being generous in whatever way we can donate our resources: time, talent, and treasure. Giving can include finances, but it may mean offering your presence, your attention, your energy, your focus, your creativity, your curiosity, your activity. What are you able to share in a sustainable way?
- Spiritual Practice Prompt: Offer a small gift or gesture of kindness to a neighbor or colleague.
Songs:
- One More Night by Maroon 5: https://youtu.be/fwK7ggA3-bU?si=k-Q0IR2KGWTI0AsZ
Giving out of guilt, Giving out of love — Rachel Held-Evans
… I realized that I was giving out of guilt, not love. And according to Paul, even the greatest, most dramatic acts of charity will leave me feeling empty if I do them out of self-interest (easing my conscience) rather than out of love (easing other people’s burdens).
[Note that Paul says that, “I gain nothing.” For a kid in desperate need of clean water, a well is a well—regardless of whether a donor gave out of love or guilt. I firmly believe that giving out of guilt is better than not giving at all, and that sometimes our acts of faithfulness must precede (or do without) our pure motives.]
So lately I’ve been asking God to show me how to give out of guilt rather than love. A few things have come to mind:
- First of all, I’ve got to stop measuring the amount of love in my life by the amount of money/publicity I give to my favorite non-profit organizations. The truth is, it’s easier for me to love people I have never met (kids with AIDS in Africa) than it is to love people I have met (that hard-core conservative down the street who always gives me flack about my politics). It’s easier for me to have compassion on the widows I spent a week with in India than the women I see every day. It’s easier for me to say I am intellectually committed to Jesus’ teaching that we are to love our enemies than it is for me to let go of the bitterness I carry around from people who have wronged me. In other words, if I have no compassion for my friends and neighbors, what I give to strangers is just charity—not love. But if I can become more patient, kind, understanding, forgiving and compassionate toward those around me, what I give to those in far away places will come from the overflow of love already in my heart.
- Secondly, I’ve got to stop looking at the “poor and needy” as mere objects of my charity and actually form interdependent relationships with the people around me—where I am a part of their community and they are a part of my community. It’s so much harder, yet so much more authentic and rewarding, to give to people I know than it is to give to people I keep at arm’s length. It’s even harder (for me) to make it reciprocal, to accept their help and friendship in return. My pride likes to keep me in the position of giving rather than receiving.
Finally, my favorite trick for easing my conscience is to judge people who don’t give as much or care as much as I do. But this is not love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. The best way to inspire others to give more is not to tell them to give more, but to live as an example—without judgment, without pride, without envy, without (gulp) cynicism. (Looks like I’m going to have to meditate on this passage a bit