Day 14 - Remember the Goodness of God

Proverbs 11:24-25 (MSG)

The world of the generous gets larger and larger;
The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.
The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed;
Those who help others are helped.

I love this scripture because it reminds me to look back on how God has blessed generosity on my life. As with many promises in the Bible, they need to be taken by faith that they will eventually come to pass. Sometimes though, we can miss it when those promises are fulfilled in our lives.

For example, in 2 Corinthians, Paul tells the church in Corinth that if they sow abundantly, they’ll reap abundantly. This requires me to exercise faith that my sowing will eventually bring back an abundant harvest. But I find that my human nature often attributes the blessing I eventually reap, not to God, but to something else.

I got a pay rise - it’s because I work hard. I got a great deal on a new TV - it’s because I know how to bargain. My retirement planning is ahead of schedule - just lucky the market is performing well.

Because of the time lapse between sowing and reaping, it’s easy to forget we sowed to see this supernatural harvest and attribute the abundant reaping to our own skills or luck. That makes it harder to see in hindsight. But this promise in Proverbs 11, though still future oriented, is easier to see in retrospect.

I look back and see that as I was generous in areas of my life, my world got bigger in those areas. I can see the expansion.

We’ve grown in the depth, quality, and number of friendships as we’ve freely given friendship to others. Our lives are enriched and our influence increased as we’ve invested love and care into others’ lives. I‘ve seen promotion and greater responsibility as I’ve been more generous with my time and diligence toward my workplaces. As I look back, I see God expanded our world because we chose not to withhold in those areas of our life.

It’s the same in our church - in both our generosity toward the community or toward our building projects. God has enlarged our influence in our community and with community leaders. I can see the seeds of our impact increasing as we begin to plant these buildings within communities that need to hear of God’s love - the beginnings of greater influence starting to flow out of our generosity.

Look back on your life and observe the areas of expansion. Can you see the pattern of generosity in those areas? What area of your life would you like to see expansion in? How can you be generous in that area toward others?