Get Generous<\/p>\n
Has it ever happened that you received a gift from a friend and then felt you had to reciprocate \u2014 not so much because you felt obliged to pay the person back, but simply out of love and gratitude? I\u2019m sure it has.
If you feel this way, imagine how God must feel, God who is love.
He reciprocates every gift that we give to any neighbor in his name. True Christians experience this frequently. And each time it is a surprise. We can never get used to the inventiveness of God.<\/p>\n
I could give you a thousand examples of this. I could even write a book on this subject alone, and you would see how true are the words, \u201c\u2026a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.\u201d God always reciprocates with generosity.
Here is one example. Night had fallen in Rome. In their basement apartment, a small group of young women who wanted to live the Gospel were wishing each other good night. Then the doorbell rang. Who could it be at this hour? At the door they found a panic-stricken young father. He was desperate: the following day he and his family were going to be evicted because they had been unable to pay their rent.
The women looked at one another and then, in silent accord, went to the dresser drawer. There they kept what was left of their salaries. In envelopes marked \u201cgas,\u201d \u201celectricity\u201d and \u201ctelephone\u201d were the small deposits they had set aside for these bills. Without a moment\u2019s worry about what would happen to them, they gave all the money to their visitor.
That night they went to bed very happy. They knew Someone else would take care of them.
Just before dawn the phone rang. It was the same man. \u201cI\u2019ve called a taxi, and I\u2019m coming right over!\u201d Amazed that he should have chosen to come by taxi, they awaited his arrival. As soon as they saw his face they knew something had changed. \u201cLast night, as soon as I got home,\u201d he said. \u201cI found I had received an inheritance I never dreamed I would get. My heart told me I should give half of it to you.\u201d The amount he gave them was exactly twice what they had generously given him.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”<\/p>\n
Haven\u2019t you also experienced this? If not, remember that the gift must be given with no self-interest, without hoping to get it back, and to whomever asks.
Try it. But not so that you can see if it works, but because you love God.
You might be tempted to say, \u201cI have nothing to give.\u201d
That\u2019s not true. If we want to, each of us can discover that we possess inexhaustible treasures: our free time, our love, our smile, our advice, our peace, our words that might persuade someone who has to give to someone who has not.
You might also say, \u201cI don\u2019t know whom to give to.\u201d
Just look around you: don\u2019t you remember that sick person in the hospital, that widow who always feels lonely, that boy in your class who failed and got discouraged, the young man who is sad because he can\u2019t find a job, your little sister or brother who needs a helping hand, that friend who is in prison, that new person at work who is unsure of herself? In each person, Christ is waiting for you.<\/p>\n
Put on the new way of behavior that comes from the Gospel and is the mark of a Christian. It is the exact opposite of having a closed mind or being concerned only about ourselves. Stop putting your trust in this world\u2019s goods, and start relying on God. This will display your faith in him, and you will see from the gifts you receive that your faith is well founded.
It becomes apparent, however, that God does not give as he does in order to make us rich. He acts in this way so that many, many others, seeing the little miracles that happen to us as a result of our giving, may decide to do the same.
God also gives to us because the more we have the more we can give. He wants us to be administrators of his goods and see to it that they are distributed throughout the community around us, so that others might be able to repeat what was said of the first Christian community, \u201cThere was no needy person among them\u201d (Acts 4:34).
Don\u2019t you think that in this way you too can help give a solid spiritual basis to the social change that the world awaits?<\/p>\n
\u201cGive and gifts will be given to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Jesus said these words, undoubtedly he was thinking first and foremost of the reward we will receive in heaven. But the reward we receive on this earth is already a foretaste and a guarantee of our heavenly reward.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chiara Lubich \u201cGive and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap" (Lk 6:38).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato","category-word-of"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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