Giving; Why and How You Should Do It

GIVING: WHY AND HOW YOU SHOULD DO IT

This piece is not going to mention anything about tithes/offering because the former has caused a lot of controversies which only God knows it’s end. Neither is this write up religious i.e it is not meant for any type of religion, anybody can read and digest every letter in it although I cannot but quote some verses from the Bible about giving.

For a very long time now, I have observed and come to discover the kind of ears people give to the word “Giving” either in church of anywhere in the society, 90% of people who heard the Pastors saying “Give and it shall be given unto you” always thought the man is trying to convince them to give money and nothing else.

They only think money is the only thing they can offer, their mindset has been limited to money as the only thing they can give to help the people around them which is vividly wrong. Sometimes does who needs to be given don’t need money, they may want something else entirely.

“Alas, I have given him money, I think I have satisfied this fellow’s needs”, that’s the thought of a man whose mindset is all about giving money whereas he hasn’t met the needs of the person he just gave.

I am not kicking against “money givers”, all am trying to pass across is giving shouldn’t be all about money, there are a lot of things we can give to help one another or the society as a whole.

It is quite unfortunate that most people don’t know that there is a huge blessing in giving. Christianity aside, when you give, you are bound to receive. It is NATURAL! The Bible is just there to prove it. When you give, you either receive directly or indirectly.

Directly, I mean you may be compensated by the same subject you formerly gave while receiving indirectly, you were compensated not by the same subject but by nature or God.

When you are a giver, you may not be compensated immediately i.e you might not receive immediately, your compensation might be in the future or to your generation to come, which is why giving is also planting into the future.

WHAT IS GIVING?

Giving is having the tendency/inclination to give, in other words giving can simply be coined as “Generosity”. Giving is being generous, a stingy person cannot give. That is why I say “giving is a habit”, some were born with the heart of giving while others learn it from the surrounding.

PRINCIPLES OF GIVING

The following are the principles of giving;

1. Giving births receiving: Without giving you may not receive. It is just like working on a computer system. You cannot and can never print what you don’t have on your PC. The computer gives you the information you earlier given as a raw data. That’s why it’s “GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT”
2. Giving is planting into the future: Like I have earlier said, the moment you give, you are planting a huge reward into your future. You might not be the one to get the reward but your generation/children will, since they are all part of your future.
3. Giving is done with compassion, every giver have compassion on who they give, that is why stingy person cannot give easily no matter how small what they need to give.
4. Givers does not expect reward: When you are giving, you should not have it in mind that you are receiving it back or you need a reward because once you do, you are no more giving, you are only lending. That is why giving comes from the heart.
5. Giving builds friendship: When you give, people tend to make friend with you not only because they also want to benefit from your attitude of giving but because they wanted to be “friends with the give”. I can boldly tell you that most of the friends I made are part of what I gained from benevolent giving.
6. Giving makes people respect you: – Just take a look at the life of Jesus Christ before and after His death, He was a giver materially and even gave his life for sinners. What was the result? Everybody respects him even sinners do, we (Christians) worship him because he gave us salvation. We can also see this from hooligans on the streets, whenever they see a generous politician or whatever, they will always hail him/her by lifting their two hands and hitting their feet on the ground as a way of showing respect.
7. Giving always put you on top of the chart, as the Yoruba adage says “oke ni owo afunni ma ngbe” translated “The Hands of the Giver is Always At The Top”

WHAT YOU CAN GIVE

As stated earlier, there are a lot of things you can give to help the people living around you. The following in no particular order are things you can give:

1. You can give advice: A lot of people in the world today perish because they have no one or nowhere to get a useful advice from. Instead of giving him just the money alone, you can also give him some advice on how to spend and save as he may also lack the knowledge of how to spend and save.
2. You can give your body: Don’t get me wrong here, By giving yourself, I mean you should serve others, so that others can serve you. Use your body to Work for God, Work for the environment you live in and trust me, people will give you their body too.
3. You can give spiritual support by praying on behalf of someone in need
4. You can give emotional support through your way of life

And also:

We all know how to give a gift. Whether it is a wedding, birthday, Christmas or just because, and buying something, wrapping it up and placing a ribbon on it is easy. But what about giving of yourself to others?  How much of this do you give and do you actually know what and how to give of yourself?

Giving of your time, as I do frequently to good causes or even my family, needs to be done wholeheartedly because just a giving a portion of what is given just won’t do.  When given in full and then some, the act or moment of giving just lifts things to a fresh new level.

When you show interest in and show your own understanding of others the person you are giving to feels it and you yourself can feel it.  There is a certain something but don’t expect a reward for it. Once you begin to seek rewards your giving of yourself is diminished and this is felt on both sides. All around you can give of yourself daily and not expect a reward but be paid back in ways that you cannot begin to measure.

Sharing in a joke and laughing with someone is in many ways giving, helping an old lady across the road and just sharing a hug with someone is all about giving.  But you can’t help an old lady half way across a road and you can’t give half a hug, once you give of yourself in these examples you are giving and in boots and all, so why would it be any different in any other situation?

In the work place you can make a massive difference to a team by giving all your attention, all your knowledge and all those things that only you can give. The same goes in sport, on them team your team expect you to give your all as much as you expect them to. So do it!

Giving to your family is vital and here giving of yourself cannot go unrewarded. Yes, we live in a crazy and busy world but time given to our family is perhaps the most valuable as all. I perhaps appreciate these more than many and recent circumstances placed me in a position where if I did not give more of me and then some I could lose all I had.

Giving to family is the most valuable of all giving, I know I would go to the ends of the earth to give to my family and I know they appreciate it and their smile, their hug and just the little things they do make it all worthwhile. Giving of oneself requires a little sacrifice and going that extra mile often means more than just a sacrifice.

I know this and I am happy, happier than most because I understand the rewards of giving myself are not worldly rewards but something much deeper.

Do you want to find that deep feeling of a job well done and being as close to absolute contentment as you can find?

Yes?

Then give something of yourself today and then no matter how much you give, give it in full and then some and you too will have the same beaming smile I have!