Moment With Betty

No one is born generous. Generosity is something that must be taught and caught. I don’t really believe in the heresy that God wants everyone to be rich but l do believe that God wants everyone to learn to become generous with whatever God has given them.

In the bible we find stories of people’s generosity – the little boy who gave up his fives loaves of bread and two fishes to feed the multitude, the Macedonian who gave in the midst of his poverty, the former slaves who gave their riches to build the tabernacle, David who shared his wealth to build the temple, the widow that fed Elijah from the little she had left and the widow’s mite and many more.

We live in the midst of challenging times and yes, when we hear the news headlines talk about the increasing rate of unemployment, starvation and the stumbling and wimbling of the stock market, let us remember that many of our people don’t depend on the stock market for their weekly or monthly income. We should therefore not operate in fear but in faith, in God who is bigger than these headlines. The bottom line is, are we making efforts at all to earn a living or are we just lazing about?

We need to teach our people to be hardworking, to be faithful stewards and generous givers with whatever they have, no matter how little it may be. There is a saying that says that if you are not generous with little things, you cannot be generous with much either. We are in the season of celebration, the season of Easter having walked with Our Lord though his journey to Calvary and seeing HIM being put to death for our salvation. What greater sacrifice for one to undergo for the love of his people. So, if Christ went through this much for us, how much are we willing to do just to put a smile on the faces of our neighbours, friends and families who have nothing to celebrate with.

The time is now, let us share the little or the much we have with those who have nothing.  I encourage us to look for best practices and materials that we can adopt or adapt for use in our churches to reach out to the needy, the vulnerable and the poor. Let us join hands with the various societies in our parishes to carry out this work of generosity and corporal work of mercy. We should not try to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of proven resources available for our church to use, we just have to open our eyes and use our heads to figure it out. We have to deliberately find and increase the number of ways to make people to give, to be generous.

 These days churches encourage a lot of thanksgivings, there are different society boxes for the poor. Some take time to identify the rich in the community and approach them individually. All these approaches are good to support the church and carry out apostolate work but the most important approach is to encourage everyone to imbibe the spirit of giving. Let us cultivate that habit and like they say, every other thing will fall in place or follow.

People need to be faithful givers not because the church says so but because it is written in the bible. Our focus should be to teach people to be faithful givers to God and not to just add to the church budget or show off as a member of the financial committee of the church. We need to realize that no matter how much we earn, God is our provider, He provides for us and He is bigger than a pay cheque or pension. Yes, the company may be our employer but God is the provider. Remember the song that goes thus, “God is bigger than every mountain, l cannot tell it all —–‘’ Believe me when l say that God is bigger than the stock markets, housing markets and job markets as the case may be. He can use the pay cheques or pensions to provide for His people.  However, let us not just fold our hands and wait for Him to do all the work.

As God’s children we are encouraged to inculcate the habit of giving generously and also help the church to mobilize resources for building projects, mission projects, crises and relief ministries, educational scholarships for indigent and special needs people. There is no gain saying that we are individually motivated by different things but let us continue to give as the Spirits moves us so that we can tap into God- given desires. Just like Saint Teresa of Avila said, “Set very little store on what you have given, since you receive so much”.  Happy Easter to you All