More Christian Than Christ

The King Solomon declares about the sluggard: All the day he craves for more, but the righteous give without sparing (Proverbs 21:26, New International Version) Let me start by saying that the act of giving is the finest way to prove a new nature. To develop a virtue is not easy. It takes real and constant sacrifice. But the reward of this effort is that if you grow in one virtue, you will automatically grow in every other virtue. If you are focused in becoming a more giving person you will mechanically become a loving person. During my missionary trips I have seen great testimonies about it. One of those happened in a small town wasted in the dust of the Cuban countryside. I was visiting a large family that inhabited the typical rural house with zinc plate roofs and wooden walls with dirt floors. The father, head of the family had been farmer all his life and for this reason the work activity of his three children headed in correlated directions to his reality: the oldest of them was a blacksmith, the second veterinarian and the third son was a wholesale pig breeder for the state fair once a month. The four women of the house were outside. That surprised me because the common thing is that they are the ones who do the household chores. But that day women were at a quinceañera party that was taking place about two miles away from my location. From the beginning of my visit and despite the fact that they were non-believers they were very kind to listen what i was saying about the Gospel of salvation and its roots in the same person of Jesus. I could appreciate that my words did not fall on wasteland. When i got to the exciting part, that is, where i ask them if they wanted to invite Christ into their hearts, i observed that with determination they all agreed to pray. And so we did. Then I said goodbye and got ready to continue on my way visiting other people from the town. The four men firmly insisted I could not leave without having a drink of coffee with them. I know this custom of the Cuban countryside. A refusal on my part would be considered an arrogant discourtesy. After accompanying them with a black drink, I left calmly, reminding them of the service in the local church corresponding to such place. Three houses visited later, I found myself saying farewell to the local guide who used to accompany me to the bus stop before returning home when something caught my attention on the unpaved road in front of us. A beat-up truck that seemed to be in dead spams stopped and four women with the classic makeup of being at a celebration got out. My local guide greeted them effusively by their first names and asked about the quinceañera. Then I understood they were the missing members of the farmer’s family. After I greeted them, I said them I was sorry that they had not been present during our visit. I shared my personal joy for the decision their husbands had made and sent them my regards. The older woman scrutinized me for a moment and said, “Too bad we could not be there. We are sorry about that, but I am especially sorry about the fact they could not offer you anything to drink. Two weeks ago we ran out of coffee in the house and today early my younger son went to get an advance of his ration quota for next month. Maybe that way we can have something to drink for a couple more days.”

I have never been able to (nor do I want to) forget that testimony and it is just one among hundreds of hearts reached by the grace of God.

To give without scant requires a real desire for a deepest connection and union with God. The act of giving personalizes in our being the very grace of God by giving his beloved son to die in our place on the cross of Calvary. When we give, we let go our selfish and superficial old nature. We focus on real and potential needs of other people. It is par excellence the fulfillment of the two most important commandments that Jesus bequeathed to us in Mark chapter 12, verses 30 and 31.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these (King James Version)

By giving both commandments are satisfied. I show my love for God by giving but at the same time i show my neighbor that I care and take care of his/her urgency. I cannot love God if i do not love my neighbor. If i love my neighbor, it is because God first loved me. A practical question would be: How much should I give? It is all of me? Everything I have?

Serving the needs of others is certainly one way to find ourselves, but it can be a way to lose ourselves. The desire to please and serve others should be driven by their needs, not by egotistical ulterior motives. We should serve our neighbors for the sake of service rather than for personal gain. The giving thing does not mean to say yes to everyone and everything. This is a symptom of not knowing what we want or what our essential values and objectives are. By saying yes to everybody and every matter we are without any doubt missing out on the one person that is intended precisely for us or on the one thing which is intended just for us. It is time for you to get clear about who you are and what the main anchors of your life are. I mean with anchors that something that you determine is critical for your success, something you would like always to be true about you. With your anchors well defined you should be able to face any situation in life and take wise decisions about your response. Examples of anchors are sincerity, loyalty, hard work, and clarity to define a course of actions, confidence in God’s provision and presence, courage to assume new dares, adaptability to unfamiliar environments and so on. Do not complicate your life, you need a clear sense of what your values, goals and strategic anchors are. Learn to say no. Most of us truly have a problem with this. If your world is overcrowded and extra heavy the answer is simple. You are doing more than it is correct for you to do. Seek your accurate role in God’s plan for your life. Do not busy yourself with a billion things. Do not try to be more Christian than Christ. So, choose prudently what to give and how to be adept in your performance. Choose vigorously what not to give and step back from every hysterical marketing of activities, these tend to divert your exact course sculpted by God. In college I discovered my three most valuable assets: time, energy and money. I shared those with all the responsibility I was capable of. My free time was short with the classes and the christian group meetings during nights. But i did it. I saved some time most of days to share with a non-believer of my faculty residence or a specific member of our not so crowded Christian community. I used to write their names in some old notebook to pray before our encounter. This was an invigorative exercise for my mind and heart. Even during seasons of trials I tried to reserve a few minutes to give to another person. My sense of gratefulness grew for God day after day. I understood the greatness that lies in his availability for us during our entire existence. He is never too busy, too tired or too far to make his presence manifested. He is always there for us. About my level of energy I must declare it was not what you would expect. I was younger but had this ridiculous inkling that my reserves of strength and determination would never be depleted. So after a process of learning I redirected my energy to choosing my to-do list and wisely my not-to-do list. The spirit of consolation worked wonders in my heart of what was truly important and what i conceived as important. I can say with joy that the fact of dedicating my energies to support others who were crossing valleys of shadow of death constituted (and constitutes) a privilege for me where i was a participant in the unsurpassed grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to call the things that are not as if these were and spread life in abundance. Regarding the asset of money, i would like to clarify that i never had the opportunity to study and work at the same time. The educational system of the communist Cuban government prevents the modality in which i attended the College from doing so. In my case I just had passed my entrance exams and i was an eighteen years old with no legal ties to the Cuban government. The other modality demands for the student to be involved in some government program that endorses their first order interests. Also note that in such programs the commitment you make usually includes years of social service and what is known as a solid political identity, aspects that I never fulfilled, so I was not allowed to work while I was studying. Either way God is God. In our christian group I had the ideal framework to give and receive of God’s faithfulness in the shape of money. We the members used to raise funds among ourselves and buy food that we then shared with the young people who did not have the chance of traveling home during the weekend because they could not afford the trip or their parents simply did not want them back so soon. I am not talking about thousands of dollars or even hundreds of cuban pesos. Valuing that one american dollar amounts to 25 cuban pesos and on average we only received one dollar or one and half dollar for the entire week as an allowance from our family, make your own conclusion. Despite this landscape, we never stopped doing it as much as possible. I discovered that the highlight of the subject is not the quantity that it is given but the character with which it is given. We are the stewards of God, and the giving of what we possess (and sometimes we do not have enough) enacts the redemptive work carried out by Jesus. God gave the best of Himself for us. He gave Himself in the person of His only begotten son. Let me reveal to you a proven miracle. When we give, God always rewards us. I know in my personal life that this is a truth that never fails. God honors your faith and goodness by activating his mercy on your behalf. Remember that gratitude works both ways. God’s work triggers our gratitude and reciprocal desire to give, which in turn reactivates God’s blessing in response to our action. This unshakeable truth teaches us that nobody beats God by giving.