Giving with Delight

To the God we serve and delight in...

On a daily basis we constantly struggle with the perspective of what it means to forgive and give/serve others.  I realized that when we are actively serving those around us, old friends, new friends, family members, co-workers, ministry partners, volunteers, interns, students, your pastor, the barista that rung up your coffee this morning etc...we tend to live in the illusions of self by bring our baggage from the past.  

Some examples: 

-I'm experiencing a bad morning, so I don't have to smile as I leave the barista that just rung up my morning cup of coffee.  

-I was stuck in traffic this morning and wasn't in the mood, so I didn't  feel like opening the door for the intern with the big pile of papers/books in hand on the way into work.

-I haven't heard back from my old high school friend for like 10 years, and they just called in for a favor, why bother responding.

-I did not appreciate how my grandparents treated me as I was growing up, so why help them in their daily needs.

Free of Charge (book cover), Miroslav Volf

I realize that the Lord wants us to experience healing and forgiveness through His grace and love for us.  I am currently finishing up a book called Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by Miroslav Volf.

Some excerpts from this book read:

-Forgiveness vs. Justice, "But God did so not out of impotence or cowardice, but in order to free us from sin's guilt and power. (pg.161)

-Christ our Righteousness, "We are creatures precisely in that we live in God and God lives in us.  We are sinful creatures when we fail to recognize this and live as if we were self-made, self-standing individuals." (pg 149)

-What is Forgiveness?  "Forgiveness is a special kind of gift.  When we give, we seek the good of another, not our own good, or at least we don't primarily seek our own good.  The same is true of forgiveness.  We forgive for another's sake, though we too may benefit from the result.  But there is also an important difference between giving and forgiving.  We give when we delight in others or other are in need; by giving, we enhance their joy or make up for their lack.  We forgive when others have wronged us; by forgiving, we release them from the burden of their wrongdoing.  (pg. 130)

I realized that when we give to others our attitude of giving comes directly from our experience with forgiveness. The illusion of our mood, our attitude, demeanor, our perspective, who we favor, and who we love stops us from offering delight to others based on who we think deserves it, usually decided from a previous experience of ours. The more baggage we carry the more difficult it actually is to give to others and  to take delight in giving/serving others. If this is so, how can we delight in the Lord daily who has already given and sets us free?

In the examples above, I was remembering some things in my life that made me want to withhold from delighting in the simple gifts of giving and forgiving.  As I realize that while we give/serve others before ourselves we are daily being healed, and learning how to delight in the Lord. It starting from the simplest thing; the very breath that we breathe.  I hope and pray that this can be a simple daily choice that each of us heading to SEALS 2012 and within our communities could embed into our daily life.  Choose to give, choose to forgive, and choose to delight in the Lord.  

So the next bad morning, maybe instead of just leaving the barista that just rung up your morning cup of coffee offer a simple smile out of delight.