GUEST COLUMN: The joy of giving

What is it you do better than anything else you do? I heard a talk in Vacation Bible School by the director who said, “even if it is as simple as cleaning, then that is your gift to share.”

I’ve known artists of every description: painting, music, sculpture, dance, theater, you name it and their fame is widely noted and very much deserved. I’ve also known humble, unheralded people who could bake pies or repair cars, fix plumbing, install walls, send hand written words of encouragement. I believe there is something unique you can do, this blessing many.

Mrs. S. knew many ups and downs. Her parents died when she was young. She was raised by an aunt in the country and there she learned to love flowers.

A warm May day and a handful of zinnia seeds and she was off and running. Soon she was preparing altar flowers at the church and bouquets for the elderly.

Marriage came in time, and children. One died. Then, her husband fell at work and it was fatal. She survived as best she could and took solace in her faith and friends and in her garden flowers that she shared freely with others. That was a natural extension of herself; a desire to be helpful.

How is it with you? I know a man who is a wizard with machines. He can hear things I have never heard as he goes straight to the problem. He volunteers in this capacity with his church bus ministry.

The giving heart is generous not for show, but to be genuinely helpful. One does not learn the joys of giving by majoring on their deficiencies and ailments, but in shouldering the needs of others less fortunate. Generosity, like creativity, knows no social or ethnic barriers. It is the language of love, with open hands and busy feet. If one is known by the company they keep, keep company with the compassionate, for the have the formula of joy.

If it is “all about me,” it doesn’t work. The most miserable people I know are all wrapped up in themselves. There is a line in an old church hymn that says “I would be giving and forget the gift.” In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, at the start of Matthew 6, Jesus says, “When you give your alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Give in God’s name, in the spirit of Christ who gave his life for you. Find the need in the Holy Spirit. Pray your way. Always be on the lookout for others you may help and you will find them, and without exception I would add, you will find yourself.

E. Lee Phillips, a minister and author, works in Floyd County.