Giving – It is a Year Round Joy

It is Christmas time again. A time of year traditionally associated with “giving.” Giving can come in many forms and for a multitude of reasons. The easiest form to consider this time of year is Christmas gifts. Exchanging gifts at Christmas is traditional and expected. The giving I want to talk about is not about following tradition or expectations. The giving I am going to explore here comes from the heart and rises out of our faith. 2 Corinthians 9:7 says, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

When I started this blog the primary goal was to share some of my life experiences with the readers, hopefully to help you avoid some of my pitfalls and as an encouragement to keep pressing forward in seeking an abundant life. I find it hard to talk about giving because what I am going to relay might appear as self-righteousness, tooting my horn. What I want you to understand is the joy giving has brought into my life and the life of my family. I also have an urgent need to relate to you how God will bless your giving as long as it comes from the right place in your soul.

Growing up, I remember my Dad wrestling with the annual commitment requested by the church we attended. He and mom would talk about it, sit it aside for a few days then talk about it again. After all the talk he would fill out the annual commitment card and drop it in the collection plate on the designated Sunday morning. I never got the idea that it brought him a great deal of joy. In fact it seemed like it was a source of angst for he and my mother. None-the-less, once per month, he would write a check for his commitment and place it in the collection plate which was passed around prior to the end of the service. It helped shape my first thoughts about giving. Those thoughts swirled around his consistent way of fulfilling the commitment he made, never making excuses for why he should skip a month. I am not trying to say that you shouldn’t tithe to your church. You should. But it should be out of joy, knowing you are using God’s provision to share the good news of the gospel with others rather than out of a sense of obligation. Giving however is not only about money. Where my father’s true giving spirit showed up was through his participation in The Shriners. The Shriners run a chain of hospitals dedicated to the care of children. Most of their fundraising activities were in support of those hospitals. My Dad loved raising money for that cause. He would participate in parades as part of the “Clown Patrol.” He would get up early to help prepare the food for fund raising picnics. Whatever the local Shriner’s mosque was doing for their charities, my Dad was all in. His enthusiasm for those events and the charities they supported and the joy he experienced was infectious and encouraged others to get involved.

My mother was also a giver. When I was very young she decided to learn braille – helping blind people read. She bought a braille machine, went to classes to learn how to do it and began translating various books and documents into braille. She didn’t get paid for translating written word into Braille. She volunteered her time because it gave her great joy to complete a book and give it to “The Braille Society.”

Fast forward a few decades. I was married at what today would be deemed, a really young age – 22. I had a good job and Terrie was employed as a teacher. We weren’t struggling financially, yet like most young married couples we had money challenges, mostly self imposed. We purchased our first home when I was 24. I was completely oblivious to the financial obligations that would present. I was 25 when our first son came into the world. Yikes! Now we had some deep financial concerns. Credit card debt crept up and up. We were in that vicious cycle many young families fall into. The furthest thing from my mind was “giving.” I totally missed the point and the joy of giving.

Like so many things my wife has done for me, Terrie set the example for giving. The summer we were engaged she worked at the Easter Seals “Handicamp” near Georgetown, Colorado. She didn’t work there for the money – as I recall she barely got paid. She worked there because her degree was going to be in Special Education and she loved working with disabled kids. That experience lead her to volunteer her time for an Easter Seals puppet program named “Kids on the Block.” She and another volunteer would travel to area elementary schools and put on a show with “Sesame Street” like puppets, each of them with a special disability. The idea was to show young children that kids with special needs were real people too. They weren’t to be feared or made fun of just because they were different from the rest of the crowd. She loved the puppet program and it brought her real joy to be able to donate her time and talent. It was her way to give. A few years later she volunteered to teach refugees from South Sudan to speak English. She quickly discovered that the barriers presented by language were extensive and permeated every part of their effort to assimilate into American culture. They had difficulties finding work because there simply aren’t many businesses that have translators who can convert Arabic to English and vice versa. She worked with several families but for all intents and purposes adopted one of them and it nearly became a full-time job. She helped them find housing through the governments section 8 program. She made sure the kids were registered for school and had the materials they needed to succeed. She took them to the doctor, to the dentist, and to the local food pantry. She found one of the mothers a job through a training program at Lowes Home Center. The only problem was, Terrie was required to work alongside the lady to help her learn how to fulfill her job responsibilities. She would go to Lowes, strap on her blue apron and go to work alongside Nagat, one of the Sudanese mothers. If there was a training class that day showing how to assemble a gas grill, then that is what she did. If the next class was about caring for a lawn mower, then there she was, learning about lawn mowers. I used to kid her that after all the training she received through the Lowes program she could take over my home duties of mowing the lawn, etc. She also filled out the forms needed to make sure the families maintained their legal status as religious refugees. These people were Christians and had been run out of South Sudan for their beliefs – some of their relatives and friends were murdered for those beliefs.

The local NBC affiliate used to have a program called “9 Who Care.” At the beginning of each new year they would accept nominations to recognize individuals who displayed exemplary volunteer work in the community. I was so impressed with what Terrie was doing with the Sudanese families that unbeknownst to her, I submitted her name for consideration for the reward. Well, she was named one of the “9 Who Care” winners. There was no personal gain to be achieved. Yes, the TV station made a donation to charities that Terrie was able to designate but that wasn’t the real reward. The point was to set an example to be followed by others. An example of how “giving” isn’t just monetary but can take many forms. Through the process the station asked me, as the one who nominated her, to do a 30 second interview on camera that would then be used to promote the “9 Who Care” program. The first thing the interviewer asked me was why Terrie did what she did with the families. My response was very simple. I explained that Terrie has the heart of a giver. And because of her, our sons also have givers hearts.

Despite all the examples that I had seen, I didn’t get what giving is really all about. It wasn’t until 1992, when I accepted Christ into my heart, that I started realizing what giving is all about. He changed my heart from a selfish, hard driving, “self made” man to a man who recognizes that everything I have comes from one source, God the Father, and while He wants me to lead an abundant life He also wants me to use His provision to increase His kingdom. When the company I helped start with my Brother-in-law sold in 2003 I had no doubt that God was firmly in control of the whole transaction. I’m not going to bore you with all the details but His involvement was very apparent. After the sale had closed I was faced with the question – “what’s next for me?” The first decision Terrie and I made was to take a meaningful portion of the proceeds from the sale and create a family foundation. It would become the vehicle we would use to make contributions to Christian non-profits whose missions meshed with our beliefs and values. It would also become a galvanizing tool for our family – requiring earnest prayer and consideration from all of us every time we are presented with a grant request. When we formed the foundation we agreed that our commitment needed to go beyond finances. It would also include using our time and individual experience and passions to help the organizations we were drawn to. That in turn has lead each of us to serve as volunteers for those organizations. We have served on their Boards. We have participated in fund raising. We have shared our personal networks. We have encouraged our friends and other relatives to get involved. None of this is done out of obligation. We don’t want our name on buildings or any sort of recognition for what we do. In Matthew 6:2 the Bible says, “Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others.” Knowing that we are serving God is reward enough. For our family, giving has become part of our DNA and the resulting joy is indescribable. Embarking on this path has changed my life. It has enhanced my marriage, strengthened my relationships with my sons and their families and reshaped my circle of friends. I am constantly learning new things about giving as I watch examples set by others.

The John Lennon song, “So this is Christmas” begins with “So this is Christmas and what have you done, another year over, a new one just begun.” My prayer for you is that this Christmas and throughout the new year, “what you have done” is discover the joy that true giving is all about. The joy has nothing to do with the size of the gift or the form of the gift. It has everything to do with where the gift comes from. It will change your life.