Sometimes, it is hard to give. Sometimes, it is hard to give anything, not just money. It can be hard to give an apology. It can be hard to give a compliment. It can be hard to give time and attention. And, of course, it can be hard to give money.
There are lots of reasons for this resistance, this reluctance, but often at the root of all of them is a scarcity mentality—a fear that there won’t be enough to go around, a fear that there won’t be enough for me: enough love, enough forgiveness, enough kindness, and enough resources. This fear, then, drives us to self-protection: holding on tightly to what we have with a closed fist. And if we give at all, we give only begrudgingly, and only with conditions: I’ll give to you, if you give back to me; something for something, because nothing is free—everything has a cost.
This may be how the world works, but this is not the way things are in the kingdom of God. There, we are invited into a very different mentality, a mentality that springs directly from the lavish abundance of grace and mercy that we have received freely and abundantly from God through Jesus Christ. There, the Christian life is characterized by freedom, because God has already given us everything we need, and so we are liberated to joyfully open our hands and our hearts and share all of what we have with those in need.
But this reality is not only then and there, it is also here and now: in Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom is breaking in all around us, and we are both invited and empowered to live generously from God’s overflowing abundance. With God, there is always enough to go around—no costs and no conditions.
