Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
Don't JustDon't just learn, experience.Don't just read, absorb.Don't just change, transform.Don't just relate, advocate.Don't just promise, prove.Don't just criticize, encourage.Don't just think, ponder.Don't just take, give.Don't just see, feel.Don’t just dream, do. Don't just hear, listen.Don't just talk, act.Don't just tell, show.Don't just exist, live.
When you start giving, instead of getting, you make a difference. You can always give a warm smile, a sincere hello, a positive vibe… your attention, your time, your love, and kindness to those around you.
If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for.
Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.
There are two missions we are obligated to carry out during our life journey. The first, is to seek Truth throughout our lifetime. The second, is simply to be good. Engrave it in your mind that life is just one big board game where you have to make it from start to finish by being good. That is all you have to do. The hardest part, is dealing with all the obstacles that prevent smooth sailing. The trick is, to always strive to be the right person in all situations – regardless of personal cost to you. Your aim is to make sure the right book on your shoulder weighs more that the bad book on the left. The scales are real. Regardless of your chosen faith, there is a measurement system to be found in all of the world's religions. After all, does it make sense for all souls, good or bad, to end up in the same place? Of course not. To really secure the very best setting in the afterlife, the vibrations of your good deeds must surpass your death.
When you suffer, you are being conformed to the image of Jesus. When you pray, you are being made holy in the image of Jesus. When you quietly serve a person in need, you are being shaped into the image of Jesus. When you generously give, your heart is being remade into the image of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
True confidence is not about what you take from someone to restore yourself, but what you give back to your critics because they need it more than you do.
Eventually, it boils down to two choices – do I wish to experience this physical reality primarily through joy or do I want to experience it through suffering? That’s all there is to it. And since each person eventually works their way toward the realization that conscious expansion can happen through joy rather than suffering – enlightenment is a natural byproduct.
Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do.
The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.
How would your life be different if...You decided to give freely, love fully, and play feverously? Let today be the day...You free yourself from the conditioned rules that limit your happiness and dilute the beautiful life experience. Have fun. Give - Love - Play!
When we give freely, we feel full and complete; when we withhold, we feel small, petty, impotent, and lacking. We are meant to learn this great truth, that giving fulfills us, while withholding and trying to get causes us to feel empty and even more needy. This truth runs counter to our programming, which drives us to try to get something from others to fulfill our neediness, only to end up even more needy, grasping, lacking, and unfulfilled.
I believe the world is divided in three groups: givers, takers and the few that can balance both impulses. Giving and loving is a beautiful thing. It is the currency of compassion and kindness, it is what separates good people from the rest. And without it, the world would be a bleak place. If you are a giver, it is wise to define your boundaries because takers will take what you allow them to; all givers must learn to protect that about themselves or eventually, there is nothing left to give.
SELFLESS LOVE.If you have a special person in your life, but you find yourselves arguing, irritated and/or fighting out of the blue… you both need to try to step back and be selfless and think of the other person... with no ego of your own. No ego. We are ALL dealing with our own tough issues. We may keep them to ourselves, but we all have struggles. If you BOTH allow yourselves to step into each others shoes- to have the awareness and respect for each others issues and struggles... that will most likely allow the love that you have for each other to shine through at its brightest.There will be ups and downs- feelings of being under-appreciated for both. It will happen. But let that be the worst that happens. Unity through diversity. That's the greatest love. A selfless love. It’s paradoxical, but you each would get back more than you give out. That's the love that conquers all things that’s mentioned in the Bible. It will be challenging for both of you, but well worth it.
How can I shut downIf you don't open up??
Love is not the answer, peace is. Throughout my whole life I have experienced and seen others use love as a reason to treat people with unkindness by being controlling, jealous, shouting in anger, and projecting guilt and shame. If you love someone but there is not peace in your heart when you think of that person then your work is not done. Do not stop at love, continue all the way towards the freedom of inner peace. Love starts when peace begins. Without peace love is simply a mask for our insecurity, judgment, and egoic attachments.
Learn how to stay out of negativity. It will improve your health. Learn how to focus on meeting your needs. It will increase your wealth. Learn how to develop strength during difficult days. You will learn how to overcome. Learn how to confess your sins and do away with them. It will help you understand God's grace. Learn how to be patient. It will lead you to accomplish your goals and results. Learn how to give. It will open doors to your blessings. Learn how to become fearless. It will bring you peace. Learn how to trust God above all else and your life will never be the same.
A rich life is lived from a giving heart not a selfish mind.
Every man has within him only one life and one nature ... It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely.
If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with that child a couple of miles. Look into the eys of tax collectors as they sue you in court; see their poverty and give them your coat. Look in to the eys of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. For God loves good and bad people.
I am thankful that there are those among us who have sacrificed dearly on behalf of us. And I ardently pray to God that I might be less like myself and more like them.
Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing.
Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?
Being a mother is not about ‘birthing a child into the world.’ Rather, it is about repeatedly ‘birthing into the child’ a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother.
Being a mother is not about ‘birthing a child into the world.’ Rather, it is about repeatedly ‘birthing into the child’ a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that the cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother.
Seek a man that doesn't ask you to prove your love. Seek a man that will prove God's love.
Some of the most beautiful things worth having in your life come wrapped in a crown of thorns.
Another decent possibility my critics implicitly deny is that of work as a gift…They assume—and this is the orthodox assumption of the industrial economy—that the only help worth giving is not given at all, but sold. Love, friendship, neighbourliness, compassion, duty—what are they?
Time is valuable in life. You can show someone how much you appreciate them by giving your time. A good amount of time goes by each day. Spending time with the ones you love shows them how much you care.
One of the greatest evils is the foolishness of a good man. For the giving man to withhold helping someone in order to first assure personal fortification is not selfish, but to elude needless self-destruction; martyrdom is only practical when the thought is to die, else a good man faces the consequence of digging a hole from which he cannot escape, and truly helps no one in the long run.
If only you would understand the silent speech and the real pain within the innermost man of they that suffer in silence, you would never keep silent to their suffering. So many people can’t speak everything about how they are suffering for the sake of dignity and confidentiality. Though they smile, they smile out of a deep pain within. When you look at someone suffering, just see how he is suffering and in so far as you can, be the joy to the innermost man of the person to the best of your ability. Don’t wait for his words, just look and see!
In the end, you will not see the physical beauty in others that caught your eye, but the fire that burned within them. This kind of beauty is the bonfire you had to attend.
Taking the Right Decision in any situation only requires TWO major ingredients:Critical Thinking and Grace.Critical Thinking is like 'Works' and Grace is like 'Faith'. So if "Faith without Works is dead," then same, I believe, goes for Works without Faith.Like the two sides of a coin, one without the other just won't make any sense. And if the coin ever has a third side, it will never be 'Emotions' or 'Sentiments' because they both have zero IQ.
Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed.
Where did Jesus’ ministry resources come from? The Scriptures give eight sources of possible income for the moneybag carried by Judas. The following Scriptures will show that Jesus never asked the synagogue congregants for free-will offerings. Nor do we see the synagogue leaders asking people to make offerings to Jesus. The custom in Jesus’ time involved charity and taking care of the needs of travelers including those who preached?
THE NAKED HEARTFrom womb to tomb,There came and went -Only you.Poor or rich,You will die withOnly you.All the wealth you harvestIn the living,Will go to others when you are dead.But the true test of a lion of God -Is to keep giving with your own hands,Before you rest in your final bed.
Christianity still makes sense because it was Christ who:- Never Judged a person by his/her appearance [Mark 10:46-51]- Never Looked down with disdain on someone just becausethat person does not come to His church [John 4:1-26]- Never kept back his miracle of Healing, just because the persondoes not belonged to His own community [Matthew 15:25-28]- Shared His Love and Grace with both poor [Luke 14:13] and rich equally [Mark 10:21]- Chose to Forgive even those whom 'His chosen ones' looks down with contempt. [Luke 7:36-50]- Proclaim the Truth about Gospel to a lost soul even if there isno one to acknowledge Him publicly [John 3:1-3]- Preferred to keep quiet even if He was 'wrongly accused'. [Matthew 27:12]- Who ranks the Giver on the basis if his/her Intent of givingand not just Extent of giving [Luke 21:1-4]- Chose to empty His pockets and desist resources available to Him,so that He can teach to Serve First [John 13:14] and lead later.- Eagerly listened to the one who came asking for help and delivered them fromtheir issues rather than opening His book of sorrows andissues to make them feel awkward and ignored. [Mark 7:31-37]...Its a shame that it is we Christians, who at times Disappoint our Christ and Dishonor His name by acting just opposite to His nature and character in our lives."World is not disappointed by Christianity, its tired of, us Christians.
THE UNFORGIVENTell me if you've ever had to deal with these kinds of people:The kind who take and don't give.The kind to whom you give and give,And they keep asking.The kind to whom you give and give and they say you gave nothing.The kind whom have never offered anything,But act like they're the ones providingEVERYTHING.The kind you give and give,But take more than you can give.And when they have already taken everything,They get mad at you when you say you haveNothing more to give.The unforgiving,The misgiving,Wastefully living -And selfishly driven.The rat that never gives back,Yet is so quick to attack -Because they think the wordTAKINGSeriously meansGIVING.
Bond is stronger than blood. The family grows stronger by bond.
Chilled ice tea that tempered tepid summer days lathered thick with humidity. Frothy hot chocolate that cut winter’s chill. Bedtime prayers that sent our fears scrambling in panicked flight. Golden bouquets of dandelions aromatically rich with the gift of summers scent. Family meals that wove yet another binding thread in and through the tapestry of those seated around the table. These are but the slightest sampling of the innumerable gifts my mother handed to this child of hers. And without them, my life would be impoverished beyond words to describe.
A parent holds within their hands the gift of a child to which they must expend the gift of themselves. And in such a monumental outpouring, the parent will lose both the child and the gifts given, but they will possess the far greater gift of knowing that they gave both.
The child you hold in your arms is your gift to a future that you will not see. Therefore, we must turn a blind eye to ourselves and selflessly pour the best of ourselves into our children while rigorously sifting out the worst of ourselves. And once we are utterly spent by such daring gestures, we will shockingly discover the resulting emptiness as astonishingly filled.
Compassion is even more powerful than courage. Sure, with courage you can conquer a world - but only with compassion can you heal and build it.
How will people remember you when you are gone? And for how long until they forget? Were you selfish or selfless? A gossip or a patient listener? Did you add value to the world, or did you simply take from it? Did you add value to the lives of others, or did you take the value out of someone's life? Were you a plus or negative? Meaningful or meaningless? Do you live to take or live to give?
Letting go of people doesn’t mean you never loved them. Sometimes, it is the greatest act of love because it teaches them to be accountable for how they treat people who care. Maybe, not now, but years from now, they will look back and realize that kindness is more than yelling casual suggestions to a person that is drowning in their sea of apathy.
Loving someone doesn't mean you have to bow down to them or drop everything and run to their relentless calls. They must understand and love you enough to give you the respect that you deserve. Loving someone doesn't mean you have to shower them with gifts all the time. Give them your honesty, hope, joy, and encouragement on a daily basis.
It is one thing doing what you love for a living. It is another thing doing what you love with love
To be ignorant of the sacrifices of others that yielded the blessings I enjoy leaves me exchanging the reality of 'blessing' for the assumption of 'entitlement.' And once that happens, I will forfeit the reality of the former which will destroy the assumption of the latter. And in what terribly dark place will that now leave me?
It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things.
Happiness gives you the freedom to enhance your ability to achieve success. Your choices in life are a direct reflection of your level of happiness. It's the sunshine for your soul that you need in order to grow
Dig Deep! When the task at hand seems to be very difficult. Dig Deep! Whenever you feel you're drifting away from your intended course. Dig Deep! When others doubt you and say it can't be done. Dig Deep! Whenever you feel like giving up. Dig Deep! When life throws you a curve ball. If you quit, you'll never hit that homerun
Quiet moments bring you closer to God. It's your silent time within your own private sanctuary. People have so many things to talk about, worry about, think about, without giving themselves peace within. Quiet moments give you access to areas of your brain which allows you to function proficiently.
The more you want to dig a hole and burry yourself in it, the more you need to run and be ALIVE and do things. The more you want to do nothing, the more you need to do something. The more you want to be selfish, just think about yourself and your own pain, the more you need to look outward and try to cheer other people up. Then you will find happiness for yourself, when you give yourself away in any way you can.
The gift of prayer is priceless gift.
We lose our ability to live fully if we neglect or ignore our responsibility to the other people who share this planet with us. We simply cannot reach our full potential without the insights and observations that other people--our teachers--have to give us. We cannot feel whole until we are helping other people to reach for their potential and to grow as strong as they can grow. We do need down time, and we do need time to ourselves, but we very much need to acknowledge our ties to our fellow human beings and act as if those people meant more to us than our jobs or pets or cars do. They are much more important than anything material that we ever can get our hands on or strive for.
To turn the tide of materialism in the Christian community, we desperately need bold models of kingdom-centered living. Despite our need to do it in a way that doesn't glorify people, we must hear each other's stories about giving or else our people will not learn to give.
The more light in your composition, the more generous you are. That is the first sign of a true light warrior. They give without waiting for you to ask. They give without expecting to be repaid. They give to strangers and even offer help to enemies. And sadly, because their light is so bright, they also attract tons of bugs and flies their way.
Keep dreaming,Keep hoping,Keep lovingKeep giving,keep motivating,Keep forgiving,Keep praying,Keep tithing,Keep sharing your testimony.
We can all produce good fruits with fertile soil.
Our job on earth isn't to criticize, reject, or judge. Our purpose is to offer a helping hand, compassion, and mercy. We are to do unto others as we hope they would do unto us.
Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.... Accepting another person's gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.
Thoughts turn to other's just a little more this time of year. Days grow shorter and memories grow longer. Families and friends gather in celebration or hope. Giving is a reflection of our love and caring for each other and those less fortunate. May your thoughts turn to gratitude this holiday season and carry on throughout the next year…
Joy is meant to be felt; its not meant to be detained. It is meant to be shared with others; not to be felt alone. When all the mouths smile out their teeth together, thats when the greatest happiness can be measured. You don't smile in order to see your friends cry and claim your joy is divine.
Why does Jesus love us? Do you ever think about that? Why does Jesus, content and whole and complete and satisfied, love us? I don’t see how this would benefit Jesus. He has nothing to gain from us; we have nothing to offer Him. There’s nothing in this for Jesus.His love for us must not be driven by what He can get - but what He can give. Jesus is aware that by loving us we might become like Him - content and whole and complete and satisfied. We must not miss this: Jesus does not love us in order to get something from us in return. Jesus loves us simply to give us all that He has to offer - Himself.
One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.
Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It's the latter who really enrich the world we live in
God's people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Then we need not stockpile stuff in barns or a 401(k), especially when there is someone in need.
God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.
I am not posing these questions only to the world at large. I query us who own Christ as our life. Can God be pleased by the vast and increasing inequities among us? Is he not grieved by our arrogant accumulation, while Christian brothers and sisters elsewhere languish and die? Is it not obligatory upon us to see beyond the nose of our own national interest, so that justice may roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream? Is there not an obligation upon us to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God is we want to live in his wonderful peace?
Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.
Life works on the same principle as a boomerang. It's simple, really—what you send out you get back. A smiling face receives many smiles. Friendliness finds itself surrounded by friends. Giving hugs creates hugs. Offered help is reciprocated. In contrast, if you hurt people you will find much hurt in your life. Unkindness begets unkindness. Misery begets misery. A dour face will receive many sour looks in response. That said, it is easy to understand that if you want a happy life you must contribute to the happiness of those around you.
Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel.
Here's a scary thought: What if God called you to give beyond your comfort level? Would you be afraid? Would you try to explain it away or dismiss it as impractical? And in the process, would you miss out on a harvest opportunity for which God had explicitly prospered you in the first place?
The simple truth is that love is a part of who we are, not something that others "give" to us if we're worthy of it. We're taught that if we just find that right person, and that person "falls in love" with us, everything will be fine. We're not taught about recognizing the love that is a part of our spirits, the love that we radiate when we recognize the beauty and need in all the people that surround us. Love is ours to share, at all moments and in all situations, but for some reason we fear doing so.
As you give to fund God's needs, are you forced to trust Him to provide for yours? That's what a growing faith is about. And over the long haul, it's not enough just to commit to a percentage. Growth means reviewing your giving goals and occasionally increasing the percentage you give.
Secrets. Funny how, when you're about to be given something precious, something you've wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous over taking it.Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don't we all long for this? Yet when it's offered it's frightening, because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you'll want-perhaps be expected- to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your *self* away. And what's more frightening than that?
Secrets. Funny how, when you're about to be given something precious, something you've wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous over taking it.Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don't we all long for this? Yet when it's offered it's frightening, because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you'll want-perhaps be expected- to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your *self* away. And what's more frightening than that?” ― Aidan Chambers, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
Christians are God's delivery people, through whom he does his giving to a needy world. We are conduits of God's grace to others. Our eternal investment portfolio should be full of the most strategic kingdom-building projects to which we can disburse God's funds.
It's not enough, and so limiting, to teach the simplistic value of a designer's material wear. Give children the gift of values that will last far beyond [a] fad's temporal popularity.
Blessed are you who sow. Every seed you so plant, will grow into bountiful crops for great harvest.
Love your neighbor, even the ones who do not show you the same courtesy. You can’t expect to receive love if you’re selective and not really willing to give it. What you put into the world, you will indeed get back, even if it’s not from the person you’re expecting it to be.
When I reach out, you take my hand. When I smile, you mirror the expression.When I triumph, you glory as if it were your own.When I fail, you point to the light at the end.When I need, you tenderly provide.When I cry, you kiss away my tears.When I suffer, you bleed.And you wonder why I love you?
Girls should be taught at school that giving birth to an unnaturally over-sized western baby that no longer fits down the birth canal may lead to a multitude of long term health problems.
if the world will attain its utmost peace and stability;and contentions be limited, then the ideology, philosophy and mentality of people in the world should be shifted from the more you acquire the more valuable you are to the more you give the more important you are and with the mentality that giving is a sacred responsibility and not a competition
Sometimes, people you value the most may appreciate all the things you do for them. but that doesn't mean they value you as much you value them. you sacrifice for them and give them all the best because you want them to be happy and you believe they deserve it. You understand and accept them for everything that they are. There are times that you'll ran short and would fail to be at your best and they may take it againts you. you'll have your own share of your weaknesses and flaws and they may not understand you and accept you. You may have been lost at times and they may not look for you or care for you and that's okay. that's the thing about giving. you give without expecting, you give without regrets and you give whole heartedly and freely. For God will always bless you with more than what you give. and it's already fulfilling to see them somehow smile and became complete and still thankful because you did something good for them and that's all that matters.
He who has experienced the mystery of the nature is full of life, full of love, full of joy. Radiance emanates from the whole existence itself, it does not know the meaning of holding back. It is pure giving-giving of love. For the great writers, love is like holding ice in hand, it just turns to water and they lose out their role but for a mystic the moment ice transforms to water love starts to flow.
What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask? Let me give you the answer in a true story...On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big grin on my face. Though most people were far too busy going about their business to notice me, one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair brought his eyes up to meet mine as we neared each other traveling opposite directions. He slowed in passing just long enough to speak to me."Now that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one," he said.My lips stretched to their limit in response, and I thanked him for the compliment. Then we went our separate ways. But, as I thought about the man and how sweetly he'd touched me, I realized something simply wonderful! In that brief, passing interaction we'd exchanged heartfelt gifts!And that, my friend, is the spirit of Christ~mas.
Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53)(Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.)
To consume the best for yourself and give the crumbs to God is blasphemy. A heart that truly worships is a heart that gives its best to God in time and substance. A heart that truly worships God gives generously to the causes of God---causes that God cares deeply about. I have to wonder whether someday we may wake up to discover that all our incestous spending on ourselves and our frantic construction of excessively luxurious places of worship---even as we ignore, for the most part, the hurting and the deprived of the world---filled God's heart with pain.
Our greatest dreams and desires abide in the mental and spiritual realm. In order to transfer them in the physical plane we need to invert subject and object. You will receive from the world what you deeply long to receive the day when you give to the world what you deeply long to receive. Today could be that day.
Nothing shows our hearts like sacrifice. When we are willing not only to give from our excess, but to embrace some personal loss or disadvantage for the sake of showing generosity toward others, we say loudly and clearly…that we have a greater love than ourselves and our comforts.
I cannot calculate nor attempt to manage sacrifice, for to do so is to attempt to sacrifice comfortably. And it is in the attempt to sacrifice comfortably that I begin to realize that the desire for comfort is in reality the demand that I put myself first, and there is nothing of sacrifice in that.
Love is about giving, about caring for the other person's welfare. Love is treating someone, in the Kantian sense, never as a means but as an end in themselves. Love is sacrifice, love is something you work at, something you build like a house or tend like a plant, brick by brick, drop by drop, day by day. Nonsense. Old wives' tales, old husbands' tales. That is affection they are talking about, that is companionship, that is charity, that is tickets for the Cancer Research Ball. You must ask the young if you want to know what love is. Only they are deep enough in it to describe. We older ones have clues and simulacra, we base our judgement, like pathologists do, on the dents and scars and sediments of hearts long kept in formaldehyde. It is the pulsing heart you want to probe: the pulsing, beating, leaping, dipping, fluttering heart of a seventeen-year-old.
In God's economy, you may even harvest a crop in places where you didn't plant seed. When you're generous, you will be blessed, whether it comes to you materially, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, or some other way. God obviously cares much more about what happens in our hearts than what happens in our bank accounts, more about our attitudes than our credit scores. Giving generously changes you. It frees you up, undermines the power that money and possessions can have over you, and it makes you more like Him.
Giving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most of our possessions. But for all of us it should mean dedicating everything we retain to further the kingdom. (For true disciples, however, it cannot mean hoarding or using kingdom assets self-indulgently.)
God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ’s sake, and from no other motive.
Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.
So it's important to remember that our job isn't to solve other people's problems for them, but to help them to discover the ways that are most effective and most practical for them to deal with their own problems. We can't wave a magic wand or open a self-help book to a certain page and say, "There--you're no longer an alcoholic," but we can listen to them and talk to them and help them to find ways to deal with the issues that are driving them to use alcohol. And when they're facing the hardest times in dealing with the problems, we can be there as someone to lean on when they need to lean.
Love and honor. They are the two great things, and now they’re dimmed and blighted. Today, love is just sex and sentimentality. Love is really a recognition of truth, a recognition of another person’s integrity and truth in a way that is compatible with — that makes both of you light up when you recognize the quality in the other. That’s what love is. It’s a recognition of singularity… And love is giving and giving and giving … not looking for any return. Until you do that, you can’t love.
Sajib had said, What about happiness – can you measure that?Rodney had thought yes, you could measure it by ease of living –how much does a person suffer compared to the next? Now, to make more people happy, how do we eliminate suffering? But happiness, in its strength or fragility, was more complex than comfort. It had so many sources, so many nemeses, and so many pitfalls. He couldn’t, in his right mind, try to instruct the happiness of others.
You often say ; I would give , but only to the deserving, The trees in your orchard say not so , nor the flocks in your pasture.Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and nights is worthy of all else from you.And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream. See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver , and an instrument of giving.For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you , who deem yourself a giver , is but a witness.
The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever the reason, ask yourself a simple question: do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want defining you forevermore?
You are going to have to give and give and give, or there's no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.
The energy that mosquitoes need to lay eggs is neither the same as that which elephants need to bring forth nor that which a woman needs to push, yet they all need a certain amount of energy vital for them to produce something! Go help somebody for God’s sake; your little is vital! Your little will inspire! Your little will bring smiles! Go help somebody now!
For the Christian, the issue is not just that we give, but how. ‘God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Cor. 9:7). And giving gladly rests on the great why of Christian generosity: that Christ himself—our Savior, Lord, and greatest treasure—demonstrated the ultimate in generosity in coming to buy us back. ‘Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8:9). If Jesus is in us, then increasingly such an open-handed tendency will be in us as well.
If your portfolio is made up of the investments that you have made in the lives of people, you will have amassed a wealth so vast that all the portfolios that will ever float the trading floor on Wall Street would, by comparison, be reckoned as nothing. And if by chance we dared to live by this truth, we would in fact would love like none other.
If your portfolio is made up of the investments that you have made in the lives of people, you will have amassed a wealth so vast that all the portfolios that will ever float the trading floor on Wall Street would, by comparison, be reckoned as nothing. And if by chance we dared to live by this truth, we would in fact love like none other.
The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesn't pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that's why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.
People die of love. I’m one of the few who’ll admit it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.Take all the people who died yesterday, or last week, or last year. Subtract all the suicides and the so-called accidents of the brokenhearted. Take away the men who got blown away for being in the wrong bed at the wrong moment, the women in abusive marriages who died of cancer because they couldn’t find any other exit from their lives. All the AIDS deaths except from the needles and the transfusions, the ones they call the innocent victims. Like if you have sex, you’re guilty. Deserved just what you got.Now tell me who all you’ve got left.Without love the world would be overpopulated, except that without love it wouldn’t be populated at all. Love giveth and love taketh away and all that crap. You’ll probably say all those people died from the lack of love, but I say it’s two sides of the same coin. So it’s the same coin.
Just like the strangers who'd fed me in El Salvador or South Africa, I was going to have to see and understand the hunger of other, different men and women, and make a gesture of welcome, and eat with them. And just as I hadn't "deserved" any of what had been given to me—the fish, the biscuits, the tea so abundantly poured out back in those years—I didn't deserve communion myself now. I wasn't getting it because I was good. I wasn't getting it because I was special. I certainly didn't get to pick who else was good enough, holy enough, deserving enough, to receive it. It wasn't a private meal. The bread on that Table had to be shared with everyone in order for me to really taste it.
Extravagant love, as in every generation before us, has been ridiculed and scorned. it is seen as wasteful and reckless overspending. But extravagant love, the offering of everything, the emptying of the pockets of our life, is the essence of true Christianity.
But the distinction is important and must be made: the highest virtue is not to give or to take. It is to share. And what I didn’t understand most of my life is that sharing includes serving oneself. It is a subtle distinction, one too subtle for most adults, though most children understand it.
Maybe that was the point of giving after all. He thought he'd given to fill others. He thought giving would allow others to fill him. But he'd had it wrong. Giving laid the holes bare and revealed his insufficiency to fill or be filled. To truly give, he had to lean wholly on God. The Lord alone could use him to help others, and the Lord alone could replenish his empty stores.
You don't need fear to make a decision for you. Let your heart make the decision. It's because you have love in your heart, that you act on it. Don't do things so you can avoid something that you fear. Do things because you have love to give. Where is your focus? Are you heart-centered in your intentions? Focus on love and love is what you shall receive in return. Whenever you give something, always give it from your heart. If there's no heart behind the intention, don't give it at all. No one wants to receive a gift that comes with a bitter taste.
I propitiated the knife-wielding deities with presents of books. The gifts to them and the head of nursing were also meant to acknowledge that although people get paid to do their jobs, you cannot pay someone to do their job passionately and wholeheartedly. Those qualities are not for sale; they are themselves gifts that can only be given freely, and are in many, many fields.
When you see and know that your wellspring is an Eternal Source, and not other people around you, or your past experiences, not even your life story, that is when you are able to truly give to others, without running out and without feeling empty. Because I see God in everything that I touch and feel and think and because I believe that He sees me in everything, too, hence I am able to give to others without thinking of myself as limited source. What I have doesn't come from others, it doesn’t come from my life story and it doesn’t come from a box. What I have comes from a wellspring, an Eternal Source. The good news is that it never runs out, there is plenty for all and for everyone.
The Bible's "it's better to give than receive" was not the raving of a lunatic. It goes back to a recurring theme that I've found in almost all my experiments: behaviour shapes your thoughts. My brain sees me giving a gift to Julie. My brain concludes I must really love her. I love her all the more. Which means I'm happier in my relationship, if a bit poorer.
What would it hurt for me to give that homeless guy a couple bucks? Who the hell cares if he spends it on beer? Maybe beer is a step up for him from the harder stuff that knocked him onto the streets in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, he’s actually going to spend it on food (homeless people do eat, right?). Maybe, he really is a desperate human being who is trying to change his situation.
..tithing isn't something I do to clear my conscience so I can do whatever I want with the 90 percent--it also belongs to God! I must seek his direction and permission for whatever I do with the full amount. I may discover that God has different ideas than I do.
Smith, you don't realize it's a privilege to practice giving presents to others.' The way he did it was charming; there was nothing glittery and Christmasy about it, but almost sad, and sometimes his gifts were old beat-up things but they had the charm of usefulness and sadness of his giving.
It's curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There's considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ's return hasn't radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires--which prophecy tells us will perish--and so slow to build God's kingdom?
Given our abundance, the burden of proof should always be on keeping, not giving. Why would you not give? We err by beginning with the assumption that we should keep or spend the money God entrusts to us. Giving should be the default choice. Unless there is a compelling reason to spend it or keep it, we should give it.
I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten!
[God] wants you to go home, look at your bucket of seed, and determine in your heart how much you'd like to sow. He wants you to consider thoughtfully your current circumstances, your life, your potential, and your finances. He wants you to involve your family. He wants you to pray about it. And then He wants you to come up with a plan.
To get he had tried,yet his store was still meager.To a wise man he cried,in a voice keen and eager;Pray tell me how I may successfully live?And the wise man replied,"To get you must give."As to giving he said,"What have I to give?"I've scarce enough bread,and of course one must live;But I would partake of Life's bountifulstore. Came the wise man's response;"Then you must give more."The lesson he learned;to get was forgotten,Toward mankind he turnedwith a love new begotten.As he gave of himself in useful living,Then joy crowned his days,for he grew rich in giving.
The story of Andrew Ewing is partly one of rags to riches – but there is more to it than that, since his business success was combined with a generosity of spirit that led him to give away a fortune in pursuit of his ultimate ambition to die a poor man.
As we draw on the grace of God He increases voluntary poverty all along the line. Always give the best you have got every time; never think about who you are giving it to; let other people take it or leave it as they choose. Pour out the best you have, and always be poor. Never reserve anything; never be diplomatic and careful about the treasure God gives.
The secret of successfully giving yourself away lies not so much in calculated actions as in cultivating friendly, warm-hearted impulses. You have to train yourself to obey giving impulses on the instant -- before they get a chance to cool. When you give impulsively, something happens inside of you that makes you glow, sometimes for hours.