The Journey
PEOPLE! Our retreat last week was Off. The. Chain. Our Fellows group was treated to an unbelievable, all-inclusive, 2-day 0-night stay in JD Meeder’s incredible living room. I’m just joking, the venue was nice but the real meat of this story comes from our topic of discussion over these two days: generosity. We had this cool guy, Brian, join us in JD’s living room and walk us through this presentation called the ‘Journey of Generosity’. What is generosity? What does generosity look like? Why be generous?
Prior to this retreat, I was really excited to lean into these questions above and gain some answers. The scriptures speak a lot about generosity, and as a follower of Christ, generosity is something I would like to be good at. So I was really hoping to find out how to be generous. I was expecting for Brian to tell me something about how I should spend my money, or how to tithe, or even different ways to be generous with my stuff and my time. I was taken a little off guard when I heard what he said.
If you want to be a generous person, “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
Generosity is not a matter of skill or talent. Generosity is actually a posture of the heart. When we seek God, and His kingdom, and His righteousness, we will wind up being more like Him. You can’t experience the presence of God and the love of God and be the same person that you were. That's just who God is. God is the author of generosity and the absolute best at giving good gifts. Seek Him and you will know Him and love Him more fully, then as a result, you will be more like Him. If you want to be more generous, Seek the Father.
Lastly, I must acknowledge that our ‘Journey of Generosity’ as a Fellow started long before last weekend. We have been experiencing generosity through families hosting us in their homes for 9 months, families preparing meals for us, leaders coming to share wisdom with us, lots of people praying for us, and people donating financially for us to even be attending this program. God has been giving an extensive lesson on generosity since the moment this program started. My gratitude goes out to so many people, but especially to our Lord.
Thank you,
Eric Mays
