He wrote I must have addressed this before... but I guess, it needs
re-addressing. Generosity is not a must. It's advised. But it's not a
must. That said, when you have worked hard to achieve some comfort for
yourself, it's expected for you, to spread the love.
The most difficult
part of generosity is not how much you give, it is who do you give and
who do you not give.
I have on my own benefited from so much generosity
and it is a given that I must return the favour. However, a certain
group of people, believe that once they ask you, you must give. It
doesn't matter whether they deserve it or not. In fact, if you refuse to
give them when they ask, they immediately conclude that you are stingy.
They go spiritual on you and make you realize how IT'S NOT BY YOUR
POWER THAT YOU MADE IT. Agreed that God makes everything possible, but
are you now saying it's God's power that made you not make it? Because
if one goes by that belief, then whoever made it made it by God's grace.
So whoever did not make is by whose Grace? When I saw this message this
morning, I thought to myself, what are the criteria that people use to
judge whether you are generous? I asked myself, are there laid down must
do that qualify you as generous? I may have been operating the wrong
way.
I forwarded the text to someone I look up to and he replied, "Ali,
your generosity is to God and no one else. Do it because of God. When
humans need you to be generous to them to show you are generous, you
will fail." HE proceeded to send me about 15 text messages he got in
November. All the requests totalled N4.6m.
And he added, that November
in question, all in, he made N2.3m... when he took out tithes, sorted
out the compulsory expenditure, took out savings, met his recurrent
pledges to some institutions, he had 260k. He asked me, "Where does he
start from reducing that N4.6m that is demanded of him?" He said he
looked at all of the requests and he picked the ones that he considered
PRIORITY.
This December, one request alone that he got on the 2nd, was
for 850k. And the month never start. I just phewed and decided to share.
What's the sharing formula in the generosity equation. Who must you
hep?
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