A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. – Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)
Many times we don’t think a lot about being generous. We are often thinking about how we can save enough money to buy the car, shoes or the phone we want. Lots of energy goes into making sure we have the latest and greatest. And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things, we’ve got to keep it in the proper perspective.
Acquiring things can trap us in an endless cycle. You get something, but it doesn’t really satisfy you, so you try to obtain the next thing, and that doesn’t really make you happy, so you reach for something new. If you’re not careful, your whole life can turn into the pursuit of stuff.
True happiness comes when you put pursuing things to the side and begin living a life of generosity. And the great thing about generosity is that you don’t have to have tons of money to do it. It can start by buying a friend a Pepsi who is having a bad day. Or helping your neighbor carry in their trash cans. It could be baking a friend some cookies after they had surgery.
Being generous doesn’t have to take a lot of money, it’s just about getting out of yourself and the pursuit of stuff and into being a blessing to other people around us. So today ask God for ways that you can begin to be generous.