The secret giver

Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,

Shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Psalm 126:6

 

Read Matthew 6:1—8

What a pity. What a pity it is, if, finally, I am moved to generosity, and I can’t tell a soul. It would be nice if in conversation I could hint at the proportion of my income I give away. It may lift others’ sights. It may shame them, and do some good. Lord knows, we need it. Don’t we always have the poor with us? But it looks as though this is one of life’s little satisfactions I’ll have to forego. The extent of my generosity is a matter I’ll have to keep to myself. All my accounts, though, are actually open to my heavenly Father. In fact, it is his business, now that I remember it. I am not the owner. I am rather the son, the daughter, in partnership. And I admit I’ve been allocating a considerable amount of my Father’s funds to myself.

 

Dear Father, every day I live by your loving kindness. You open your hand to me in generosity. With the creatures of the field and the birds of the pavement I am fed. I receive my daily bread. I have somewhere to lay my head, and that is more than my Saviour sometimes had.[1] I thank you that you have entrusted me with what I call my own. Save me from dying rich. I pray that with all I have I may cheerfully bless others. That I may find giving a matter of sharing your heart. And a joy. In fact, the quiet, secret joy we have between us. Somehow you give me this as a way to know you better, as it were from the inside. For, I see now, that you give by the day and through the generations — and how much, truly, are you noticed and thanked?

[1] Matthew 8:20