He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. Deuteronomy 10:18
“Charity isn’t the responsibility or privilege of the wealthy alone, but all people, regardless of social or financial status, and it isn’t practiced among the wealthiest people I know nearly as strikingly as with those I’ve known who are living in a state of material poverty and insecurity. For twenty-six years, I’ve been attempting to outdo victims of war with generosity, and so far, I’ve failed.
Do you want to experience hospitality? Go to any refugee camp or hide site for IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the world and be invited into the shack or tent of a family displaced by war, reduced to a few threadbare clothes, and some simple sentimental possessions like a wedding picture. You enter and a rush of activity ensues: water is boiled to make sweet tea. A meal is prepared. The table is wiped; a pillow is placed at the small of your back as they say, “Recline here. You must be so tired.”
Material wealth may make generosity abundantly clear. But wealth is not required for generosity. One may be wealthy and generous but one may also be poor and generous. Wealth is a tool, and may as easily be employed falsely as altruistically…
Those of us who have done this work for many years will tell you this: we learned the most important lessons of our labor from the people we set out to help. No matter the level of sacrifice or generosity, we will never outdo displaced families when it comes to intention, loving community, and sacrifice. We, like them, are learning to love by loving.”
Steve Gumaer in “Learning Generosity in Syria” Plough blog post on 9 April 2021.
Special thanks to Daily Meditations reader, Bill Crowe, whom I have never met but often blesses me with quotes. He shared amazing blog post with me. It’s worth the read. Thanks mate!
Ponder the generosity of refugees. Every wonder how your generosity could be striking and abundant like theirs? Think about it? What causes us to label generous activity with those terms?
We choose those words when behavior is unexpected or countercultural. It appears as different from the norm. So, if we live in affluence, striking and abundant generosity focuses on dispensing rather than accumulating.
For those in poverty, like the refugee, the focus on sharing with others rather than worry about what they don’t have. This is only possible when we realize that we have something better than what the world seeks after.
Only when our trust is firmly in God do we become people who “defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow.” Only then do we “love the foreigner…giving them food and clothing.”
Where do you fit in this picture? Are you rich or poor? Don’t let that impact your generosity as generosity is about more than money! What would it look like to learn to love by loving for you?