Monday, July 30, 2012

Generosity in Poverty

It is interesting that we tend to be selfish in our abundance. It is therefore strange that we tend to be generous in our poverty. Logically it ought to be the other way round, I don't have much so I can't share with you, or, now I have lots, I can share.

Today, one child had a kind of "healthy" lolly snack and because he flapped it in the face of his brother, I broke a bit off and said he now needed to share it with his brother because his brother hadn't gotten one that day. I did not mention that their sister should be shared with, I knew she had had one earlier that day. So the scene is set, one child has a large lolly, the second child has a token amount, (2 inches to 10 inches) The second child looks at his sister, breaks his small bit in half, and gives some to his sister.

This is a fascinating aspect of human nature, God gives gifts, and we are to share what he gives. Sometimes, the more he gives, the more we hoard, thinking that there is a limited supply. This puts God in a box of inability, assuming he can't or won't look after our needs so we need to look after our selves. This is not how God intends us to be, because of sin, we turn God's gifts into possessions we feel we deserve and need to keep and use for ourselves. Thankfully, God's spirit enables us to look past ourselves and to notice that, while we feel we don't have much, other people have less. While we feel we ought to look after ourselves first, it is better to care for and love other people.

Stinginess in plenty is just one more way in which we/sin have messed up God's good order of things.

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