Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 07, Issue 04: The Beauty of Generosity

I happen to live with a really extravagant individual. He is extravagant with himself, with me and with the people in his life in general. He gives more than is needed, mind blowing proportions sometimes. Earlier in life, I regarded this attribute as wasteful and irresponsible. But in recent times, I have come to appreciate that generosity is such a beautiful attribute to possess.

This is how God is with us, utterly generous. The Bible says that God will do immeasurably, abundantly above, what we could ask, think or imagine. If this is not the epitaph of generosity, then I don’t know what is. Since we are to become like God, then generosity is one of the things we ought to work on.

Granted, generosity isn’t natural for some of us. I am amazed at some of the things I goof at as far as generosity is concerned. This is something we have to be intentional about. We have to set our mind on being generous, and keep it set.

God doesn’t give us just a little bit of mercy. His mercies are new every day! When you go to him with yet another mess, he doesn’t say, ‘sorry, you have used up all the mercy I set aside for you’.

Our God is Jehovah Jireh, the God of more than enough, the God who provides, the generous God. God is not stingy with his forgiveness, his help, his provision. He doesn’t set aside a little tiny bit, barely enough for us to get by. He has given us more than enough, and he expects us to do more than enough for people.

Live in a way that God can trust you with wealth by being a channel of God’s blessings. Be a generous giver. Have a no-lack attitude, not just when you have plenty, but starting right where you are.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 112 that blessed is the man who fears God. This man is generous and lends lavishly, he lavishes gifts on the poor, his generosity goes on and on and on. What a way to live! Being generous doesn’t deprive us. The Psalmist’s told of how blessed this man’s home is, his house brims over with wealth, a generosity that never runs dry. This generous man is ever blessed, relaxed among enemies. Sunrise breaks through the darkness for him. He lives an honoured life, a beautiful life. Who wouldn’t want to be generous knowing this?

Make up your mind to be generous. Give generously to people. Be generous with your compliments, with your gifts, with your support, with your giving, with your appreciation, with your gratitude, with your love, with your forgiveness, with your understanding, with your encouragement, with your time.

Be an excellent person who goes the extra mile. Let us not just do what we have to do, but always want to do more than we have to do. Let us guard against selfishness by being aggressively generous. Ask yourself what you can do for someone else every day.

What do you do when someone comes to you with a need? Let’s live with an open hand and an open heart. Let’s stop asking God to do things for people that we can easily do ourselves but don’t want to make the sacrifice to do.

Spur yourself unto generosity, starting with where you are. We don’t need to keep hearing about draught in some parts of the country around this time every other year. No Kenyan has to face starvation when some of us have more than enough, and it doesn’t have to be just the government’s responsibility. How about partnering with the Red Cross and adopt a family or two, or 10 families, or 1,000 families until the draught is over!

Dare to be generous. Trust God for you to be able to provide decent meals and shelter for a million needy people every day. Trust God for you to be able to provide school fees for hundreds of thousands of needy students every year. There are people who do these kinds of things. Let’s want to be one of them.

Generosity is love in action. You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving. Don’t give people just a little bit of you, when it’s convenient. Be generous with your time, with your mercy, with your kindness, with your energy, with your praise, with your talent.

Keep in mind that you cannot be genuinely generous with people if you are stingy with yourself. If you do, you will do it resentfully rather than cheerfully. Even God says to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Start at home. Don’t hold back from yourself what is within your reach. Be lavish with yourself, forgive yourself, give yourself a break, grant yourself permission to enjoy life; and then help others enjoy life too through your generosity.

The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed; the one who helps others is helped. Choose the larger life. Be generous.

Lillian Chebosi