The Multiplicity of Kindness

God gives infinitely better than I can take. God’s blessing persists in the multiplicity of kindness when I insist on giving with a heart to give.

***

If I was to take everything I could,

Even though I know to give is what I should,

I would find this a theft against myself,

This thing would go against my health.

The wisdom in life is as simple as this,

When we give and don’t take we are blessed with bliss,

When we give away what God gives us,

We get the blessedness of our Lord’s trust.

Limits are not a thing that God imposes,

And when we commit to giving the cursing closes,

Not that we come to expect every God-good-turn,

But to experience grace is for what we yearn.

As our Lord said, “It is more blessed to give than receive,”

In such a state our hearts can conceive,

The brilliance of the love of being kind,

And to this way nourish the heart and mind.

***

It is a common Christian cliché that we are “blessed to be a blessing.”

It is nonetheless true. Through giving we echo the glory of God, who gave and gives and continues to give from everlasting to everlasting.

In a relational life that is every bit communal, we have hundreds of opportunities to give and receive—as a form of giving blessing to those who love to give—every day. To miss the majority of these opportunities is to be human. We will never be perfect. But to miss such opportunities to shower the kindness of giving into others’ lives, by intention, in other words to choose to take, is grand larceny against our souls.

Only the devil profits out of taking behaviours, where we would steal (and this isn’t just about the stealing of materials). When we steal we do the devil’s bidding. It is a short-lived joy that inevitably exacerbates our pain. Others, too, are cursed as a result.

Miracles occur in the giving.

The more we give, without second-guessing the will of God, the more we feel blessed in the giving, and the more God trusts us with further opportunities to give and be blessed by the giving.

The more we can give away the freer we feel.

The less materialistic we are the more spiritual we are becoming.

The less money has to do with our approach in life—besides taking seriously the responsibilities attached to stewardship—the fewer the worries we have. And our lives are simpler to boot.

***

This is such a simple truth. God gives infinitely better than I can take. The more we give the more God gives back to us.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.