Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9
“The West values itself for its ability to produce things. Priests, nuns, and lay people tend to evaluate themselves interiorly by what they produce. Priests especially do not realize that their presence is enough. I often tell priests who work in parishes that one of the best things they can ‘do’ is simply walk around their neighborhoods and be present to their people. If they don’t do something, they feel that they are wasting their lives away.”
Northumbrian Community in Celtic Daily Prayer (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) 808. Today is the last post from this precious book.
Our Scripture reminds us that God cares about our relationship with Him and illustrates how we can impact others by our presence. This flies in the face of Western and worldly thinking which values people for what they produce.
But how does this relate to generosity?
Much of giving, especially major gifts, is linked to outcomes or production. We need to jettison this thinking. It puts unnecessary pressure on God’s workers. Instead, let’s encourage faithful activities including being present with people.
Why does it matter?
How we live out our faith and dispense our generosity is as important as what we believe and support. If we are always busy and/or focused on production, we may miss the bigger story unfolding around us. Or cause others to miss it. Often I am guilty of this.
Perhaps you are too?
I’m taking a break today. I’m going fly fishing with my son, Sammy, today. I look forward to the gift of time together. Sure, I hope we catch a lot of Greenback Cutthroat trout but time together in each others’ presence will be priceless.