Acts 20:35, “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
A hard lesson for me to learn is that life has never been about me. As a strong “A” personality, I never really thought about life being about me, as much as I thought it was about being all I could be. There is a slight nuance in that statement. The nuance is that I tried to optimize my performance with the resources God gave me, but not for the betterment of anyone else. I wasn’t narcissistic, just ambivalent. It was like God set the bar, and it was my job to jump over it. To me, this was a righteous attitude.
The Approach
My approach didn’t intentionally belittle anyone else, although, in hindsight, it was probably a by-product. Other people had their relationship with God, good or bad, and they had their bar. Their performance was their issue unless it hampered my performance. Then I use biblical principles to remove the obstacle, through mentoring or outplacement (I always hated that term). My life was my little private war. We should all play to win, that is the only way to play.
I know the moment it all changed. I had just given a kick-off talk at our annual all-hands meeting. I was looking over the crowd of employees; there were quite a few. The thought came to me, “What about them?”. What about them; they have their private war to fight. Then the light came on. It was never, ever, been about me. It has always been about them.
Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
The Take Off
I don’t know how I could have been so stupid. If we back up and look at this for a moment, we will see that it is intuitively obvious. God’s greatest joy in life is to serve us. I know that sounds backward, but hang with me a moment. God wants us to be utterly dependent on Him. By God giving us what we need, He experiences joy in that we recognize we need Him to accomplish anything. Everything we have, or ever will have, comes from Him. God gets pleasure from us, asking, and then receiving blessings from Him. The caveat to this, less we start to think of God as Santa Claus, our asking has to be within His will. He will not give us things that are bad for us.
How does this translate back to us? It is not a matter of will I, but I will receive joy by blessing others. I started to recognize, in my little way, God had given me resources that I should use to bless others. I now try to do this at every opportunity and receive great joy because I do. Not that they should become dependent on me, they should always be dependent on God, but God could bless them through me.
Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Think of the good feeling you get when you help someone out of a jam. That is a mild version of what God feels when we turn to Him in our hour of need. Then think of a time when someone was too stubborn to accept our help and how that made us feel. Do you not believe God may have some of that same feeling? God heaps resources at our disposal; it may be material resources; it may be spiritual resources; it may be experiential resources; we have a storehouse of blessings waiting to be distributed. We are part of God’s supply chain. If we hoard these resources, eventually, our warehouse will fill up, and our supply will dry up. One of the silly visuals I have is someone angrily running around reorganizing their warehouse so they can store more things. I want to shout “Dude, give some of it away, then you can get more.”
Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”
The Finish
God loves us. He wants everything for us. There is no limit to the amount of joy He receives by blessing us if we will let Him. There is no limit to the joy we can experience if we allow God to work through us. The bar in front of us is to serve others in much the same way God helps us. Be a plentiful resource for others. Get joy from their asking and your providing. Always remember to give glory to the provider of all things.
2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”