Generosity this Holiday Season and Beyond

Hey y'all, Christmas is on the way and with it comes the chance to practice generosity! What a great joy it is to be generous with our time, relationships, finances, and talents. And during the holiday season, the opportunities to be generous are abundant and not hard to find. But while the opportunities are available, sometimes we can still find it difficult to to be generous. Why is that??Well, we're going to talk about it on today's episode of My Tennessee Table. We're thrilled to have you at the Table for this great conversation about the what, the why, and how of practicing generosity during the holiday season and beyond.

https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/generosity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer- "The Cost of Discipleship" book 

Transcript

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Hey y'all, welcome back to my Tennessee table. We're so happy to have you at the table with us today. We are fresh off of Thanksgiving day last week, Lili, and we are now officially. In the Christmas season, 20 days and counting until Christmas. Are you serious? I know. Oh my God. Are you ready? Listen, I think we've done a pretty good job trying to push back. Yeah. We love the season. Yes. We want Christmas, but to push back. Cause we wanted to give Thanksgiving all of its due. Yep. And we did. It's glory. And now. We can just embrace it. Yes. We're gonna do it. So, and you did a little fun thing today with the kids. I did. I took them to see, the best Christmas pageant ever. We, me and Kate and Emmy have been reading it at night, which is, You know, we've been talking about like slow pace and presence and all that kind of stuff. And I will say, I'm not that mom that will sit down and just read books and books with my kids. Like I just, I want to be, but I actually was this time I did it this time. And because the weather got cooler and our fireplace would be going and I'd make myself some hot tea and we'd sit and we read through the book and um, it was so good. And so I told the kids, I was like, once we get through the book, we'll go see the movie. And we did. And the movie was. Awesome. It was, I want to see it. It was just like the book. I mean, they don't hear that. They did a amazing job on taking what is one of just the best books and making it into a movie. And I just, I cried at the end. I cried at the end of the book. You know, I cried at the end of the movie too. Just seeing Imogene Herdman. Yes. Be merry and the Christmas pageant kids like it. They loved it. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. They loved it. Yeah. In fact, Emi turned around and she was like, Mommy, I think imaging might have turned kind. And I was like, I think so too. Oh, the movie did its job. It did. And she loved the book too. So anyway, it was great. And guys, I would say this is the time of year to sit down with your kids and read through a book like that. It was, it was such a blessing for me who loves to live super fast paced and busy, busy, busy to slow it down every night and just sit with them and read them a book. So yes, very good. Well, we, we've done a couple episodes. This season is our holiday season, season two, we did a few episodes just specifically about that. Just kind of embracing the season. One was on Eucharisto that we were giving thanks, for all that the Lord has blessed us with to help us be intentional this season. And then we also did one on Advent. The meaning of that and the significance of that and how we anticipate Christ's birth. So we've tried to be purposeful each of us in certain areas of our lives, to just really be, present in this season. So how's that going for you? It's been good. So, you know, if y'all have listened a few episodes back, I was trying to put my phone away at night, put it to bed from eight to eight. And that has been going really, really well. I will say on the weekends I'll slip up and I'll be like, Oh gosh, it's, you know, I'm still sitting on the couch. Yeah. Yeah. Or I'll be like, it's nine o'clock and I'm still sitting here looking at my phone, but I'm not in my bedroom yet. So that that's part of it is like putting it away in the kitchen and plugging it in there. And then I go to my room. So, but I mean, I really feel. Like, my day just feels different when I'm not going to sleep and looking at my phone the last thing at night or waking up and grabbing it first thing in the morning. I just feel different. It's just different. So I think it's working. What about you, Julie? How's it going for you? Let me, mention this because I text you last night. Yeah, you did. I text you and not that I expect an answer right away. I don't, I know that about each other. I mean, you have a busy life, everybody does, but I thought, Oh, Hey, she's doing the eight to eight. Yeah. And it was like 10 after nine. I just smiled. I was like, my friend, she did it. I didn't respond. And I thought she's not going to answer me until after eight, you know, yeah, this morning. Yeah. So well done. Thank you. Thank you. Well, how am I doing? I'm still wrestling my schedule to the ground. I'm telling you, but I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to do it. the goal really is to make the season a little slower, not to rush. So much, and just to make space, you know, in the upcoming weeks with my time to be a little more open for the important things, again, reflecting on the reason, we celebrate this season, Christ's birth family. I want to, have margin for family. What an idea. Hello. Hello. Yeah. And then, you know, opportunities to serve our church does a wrapping station. and I want to, I'm going to do that. I have time to do that. So it kind of goes along with what we're going to talk about today on the episode. just the spirit of generosity this season with our time, our finances, our relationship, maybe our talents. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Now during this season, they seem a little more reachable. Like there's opportunities to give her more prevalent. Like we have the tags at church, on the tree where you could, buy gifts for children and foster care or, if parents are incarcerated, I think it's angel tree, grace works, So there's a lot of readily available opportunities. So it seems like, Oh yeah, should be easy, but then it's hard because of our time again, sometimes is, a little packed as well as, Christmas can be expensive. I mean, it's just the way it can be with, travel or, celebrations present. you brought this topic to us, this, topic of generosity, over the season. So share just a little bit about your thoughts about that and behind that. You know, it's funny. I did bring this to, for us to talk about, about possibly talking about this, the season, because I don't feel like I'm a super generous person. I just don't feel like I live generously. And so I just thought, Oh gosh, if I just feel like this all the time, As we're entering in the holiday season, like you said, like our expenses are great because we're, we're buying all this extra food and you're constantly having, just people over and you're feeding them and then you're buying gifts for every single person. Forget like the band teacher. Yeah. And I mean, I ended up going to like Costco and buying like a million, like 10 gift cards just to have them to hand out, which maybe that does sound generous, but I don't think of that as like. Generous because I'm not serving, I don't know, the different people. It's more like, that's more about me sometimes. Right. Like it's more about, I want to look like, so I didn't forget anybody. Yeah. Like I care or that teachers, I want you to like my kids. So here's this nice, you know, it feels sometimes more about me than it is about the other person. And I don't want it to be like that. So as we're. in this holiday season and we keep talking about this and how we're being inundated with shopping links and things we need or things we don't need. Gift guides for every family member and you know, that you would ever think about possibly buying for, for your dog, for your great aunt. Like, it's like your gift guide for, I don't know, your next door neighbor. You're like, really? Are we buying gifts for all these people? anyway, we thought it would be really helpful if we talked about. Having a generous spirit and why it can be hard in this holiday season to live. And I was watching the Bible project, which we've talked about how much we love the Bible project before, and they have a video on generosity. And they were just talking about how we live in a world of scarcity and struggle. Like, like I just, I can't get enough. Like, if you walked in my house right now and you saw my pantry, you'd be like, Lili, you have enough. to feed 12 families for at least a month because I go to the grocery store like, Oh, we need more, we need more. And you think about like back in COVID when all of a sudden there was no toilet paper because it was that like scarcity mindset. And we just constantly live in this. Mindset of things are going to run out and I need to consume, consume, consume, consume, consume, and I'm super guilty of this and I overbuy all the time. I don't, and I don't even know why. I think it's just our Western culture. But I loved what the Bible Project guys said. They said, and this is a quote from them, Our scarcity problem isn't caused by a lack of resources. Rather, the problem is our mindset. Is that God can't be trusted. It was so good. And that good. I loved that. I was like, Oh, I read it a couple of times you had in our show notes. I was like, Oh yeah, it's a nail on the head right there because God wants us to experience his generosity. He will provide all that we need. All we have to do is just trust in his generosity. Everything in the earth is his everything. I think about this all the time. I think, I mean, Every single penny that's on this planet is his and it's up to him like he will give us what we need and not only will he give us what we need, he gives us an abundance. He's given us more than what we could deserve, specifically Jesus. You think about, I know I talked about this a couple weeks ago about the chosen, but watching the chosen and watching the guy who plays Jesus, just make reminds me of Jesus and his, the way and the way that he was on this earth, but he lived in a way that was just light and. And he wasn't worried. He wasn't bogged down. He was a non anxious presence in the world. And it's because he knows the father. He, he lived with this mindset of abundance, which allowed him to live a life of generosity. So if you trust in God's goodness and love, and Jesus lived and he died so that we can now live the way that he did, we can trust God and we can trust that he will provide enough. So that we can live with a generous spirit that we have more than I need and more than I want. And so not only does living with a generous spirit, bless. other people, but it blesses you and me and us. We are blessed in return. We're blessed by getting to live in the kingdom of God here and now and have that easy Jesus way about us because we know that we're going to be taken care of by our heavenly father. More than we could ever ask or imagine. And the verse in Matthew 10 that talks about how God cares for the sparrows. And if he cares for them, he cares even more for us. And so we have to switch our mindset from a mindset of scarcity. And switch it to a mindset of abundance because of who we are. We're children of God. Like, this is a, this is a Christian podcast. this is no shock to you guys that we believe in Jesus and that we follow him and we want. Everything that he wants for us, we, we want that for ourselves. And so we want to live with that mindset of abundance and know that our father, our heavenly father, who is perfect in every way, loves and cares for us, every single one of us in the way that he does. And to be able to give out of that, to give our time, to give our resources, to give our finances, because we know we live abundantly. Right. I think you touched on it, the word scarcity. Yeah. And I think it's our natural default. It's mine. Oh gosh. I mean, think of your littles, right? when, they were small and the cookie, package ran, there were no more cookies, like, so if Chelsea got two and faith got two and there's one left. Where's my two? Where's my two? Where's my two? Yeah. I mean it's running out. And so our default is that everything will be used up, everything will run dry, eventually it's going to be gone, and so that's how we think. And for me, I know that I can grow worried, I can grow selfish, I can grow envious. if I see the Lord's, blessing, and I'm not even talking about financial I'm just talking about his hand of goodness in someone's life. it's taken some maturity on my part. Not like I'm so mature, but it's taken some maturity on my part to rejoice with someone else's blessing and, and gift, because now I know God's not going to run out. And when I, think he's a God of scarcity, I think when he gives to another, that means there's not enough for me, but that's not who he is. you shared a verse. I don't even know, a couple episodes ago and I just thought of it again, the Romans 12 2. Oh yeah. Do not be conformed to the way of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And, and you had shared, even if you just say the, remember the first part, do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. And the pattern is to believe that there's not going to be enough. listen, God's been here before us. He's never run out yet. It's going to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I want to be sensitive to you because there have been times in life when, by the, by the world standard, we didn't, I don't want to say we didn't have enough, but we were, Tight. Yeah, people blessed us. We needed assistance and financially Lance was working hard I was working just sometimes so I want to be sensitive that sometimes it does feel like it's not enough So we're not we're not just talking about monetary. No gifts here We're talking about how he sustains us right with spiritual gifts and blessings of friendship and blessings of joy so So I think if we just remember, like you had said we're not working, we're not doing it, but he is in abundance in our life. I also, had told you that when we were talking about this, idea of generosity that Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to mind. Now, it could be because the movie's coming out. It is coming. We want to see it. but I also thought I'm going to go back, in his book, The Cost of Discipleship he's written. I don't even know 15 or 18 or 20 or something. if you don't know who he is, he's a theologian, was a theologian and a pastor and author and a martyr. He died for his faith, in the Nazi regime in Germany. and so he wrote, well, it doesn't use the word generosity. in this quote, I do want to share it with you cause it's about the blessings that God has given to us. I'm going to read it. he writes earthly goods are given to be used. Not to be collected in the wilderness. God gave Israel the manna every day and they had no need to worry about their food or drink. Indeed, if they kept any of the manna over until the next day, it went bad in the same way. The disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, it spoils not only the gift, but himself as well. For he sets in his heart unaccumulated wealth and makes it a barrier between himself and God. Where our treasure is, there is our trust, our security, our consolation, and our God. So much. Oh. That's good. That's a good one. Just what you were talking about, that we can shift our trust in the wrong thing, which is so interesting because we could shift it to. Possessions or talents when those were given by God. They were never ours in the first place. Yeah, along with what you share and then just reveals where we place our trust and then the Matthew 621 verse came up. I think that you had thought this one as well. But for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also, we're called to steward what God has given us. I think that's what But I mean, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is trying to get across here too, that it's not ours, that we get to steward what God's given us, our home. our first year here, I might have mentioned this, our first year here in Nashville, we had, 32 visitors. That's amazing. Which was fantastic. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. And 28 stayed with us, not all at the same time. the other four got a hotel or something, but it was like changing sheets and going to the grocery store and getting breakfast food and, and I loved it. I loved it. And I thought every once in a while when I got tired, I thought, God, this home isn't mine. This home is yours. And you've asked me. to steward it well for you and so it could be your home. It could be relationships. We talked about it. Could be talents. So, just to remember that we get to use what we've been given to glorify God. And that makes it ask. That's an act of worship that we do that. one other verse that came to mind was 2 Corinthians 9 11. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. That's what we want to do. Yeah. Right. Live our lives to give him glory. And finally, you touched on this as well. sometimes we think it's an, it's entirely a blessing for someone else. if you've gone on missions trips before lately and you're like, Oh. We're going to be such a gift to them. And oh my gosh, your world is rocked. You come back and you're like a changed person. You are. And it wasn't because you've changed something for them. It's because God did something in your own heart. when we're generous, it, it blesses not only them, but us. It reinforces again, who are we going to trust to be our provider for all things? We get to reflect him to the world because he's generous. It gives us joy. I can't ever remember a time that I served. No, as I. That was super disappointing. I wish I hadn't done that. What a letdown. I wish I hadn't been generous. It's just not, that just doesn't happen. So, and it causes us to constantly, have the thought of putting others before ourselves. We're just naturally generous. From when you're an itty bitty, selfish, it's just how we are. what about you? I'm going to flip it a little bit and ask you if you've had an experience of, being the receiver of generosity, maybe not the giver, but the receiver and the situation. And then what that meant to you. Yeah. I mean, I have like, so. Many stories of, the generosity of others. And it particularly goes back to when, I was in high school. I was like a junior senior. And when my dad left and there are four kids and my mom, and we were in a really tough financial situation, we were about to get evicted from our home. just a lot was going down and. One evening we had, so our garage door had glass at the top. And one evening we were all sitting in the kitchen and, we look over and there's something like on the door and you could see it, you know, through the glass. And so we were like, what is that on the door? And so one of us went and looked and they grabbed it and it was, an envelope full of cash and it was around Christmas time and it was obvious someone had just taken up a collection. We have no idea who it was. And they, they left it there for us, for my mom to be able to provide Christmas for, you know, her four children. There are so many different stories like that. There's another one and it was at Christmas, I think maybe that same year. But I was at our church, First Baptist Montgomery, big Baptist church. In the center of the South. And everybody in town knew what was going on, knew our story. It was no surprise. And so I was at church on Christmas Eve. And I walked in with my brother, Walker, and this man walked up to me. And he said, And I don't, I don't think I knew him, but he knew us and he knew what we were walking through. And he hands me a hundred dollar bill and he said, I just, please, please use this to get something for your mom. Please just do something for your mom for Christmas. Here's, here's a hundred dollars. And I remember looking at my brother walker and being like, what, what stores open on Christmas Eve? Like, where can we go? What can we do? but we ended up giving, just giving my mom the money and just letting her know somebody, you know, thought of her and cared for her and wanted to do this for her. This wasn't for us. This was for her and just the way that people just. gave an abundance to us in a season where we had nothing. I mean, we literally had nothing when we, we did get evicted from our home and my uncle provided a house for us to live in. And so when we moved out, we were all like rallied up, like, here we go. We're moving out of our house and we're moving into this, this other small little house, but gosh, were we thankful to have somewhere to go. And it was our first night in the new house and. That we had nothing, everything was in boxes, my mom sent somebody off to KFC to get us some food, and we sat on the floor of the dining room, and we had no utensils or no anything, and because we were eating chicken, we were like, well, we can use the chicken bones, and so we're eating our mashed potatoes with the chicken bones. It's very ingenious. I know. We were resourceful. Yes, you were. And I look back on that season of life, just, I mean, side note, and just think, gosh, I learned so much. Like, I learned so much in that season of life. boy, was it hard and terrible. But I am a different person because of walking through that. And I do feel, that the Lord has just really given me a heart for single moms. Because that's you too, Julie, like that's, you know, how, how I lived at, from that point on was just watching my mom just struggle through trying to make it for the four of us. And, when I see somebody in that situation, I just want to sweep them up and just make sure they know that they're doing a good job, they're doing all that they can do and to help and. Provide and do whatever I can in those situations because people did for us and it blessed us so much And I'm telling you my mom could write a book on just the ways that God provided in that season for us Through the generosity of his people and specifically the church. Yes, and and that those people whomever that they probably forgotten remember And the beautiful part is to do it. We don't want praise for it, right? We want to do it in secret. Yeah. So they, they don't want that. but the impact, I don't know that any of us will really understand that impact. I mean, I'm still telling the story today and it's been 25 years ago, that this happened and that's, it still has made an impact on me and it has changed the way that I give to other people. Because you have, you've felt all the emotion, The ease and the joy and the heart because you've walked it. So it's so impactful to give to other people. What about you, Julie? Have you, Experience the generosity of others. Yes. so much so too. I was, I wish I could remember more cause I know there's been more. when Lance and I were first married and we had our first house and, I can't remember why we had a medical bill. Maybe it was a baby. You were babies having babies. We were, we should. Let the people know. Yeah. I was 19 and we had three kids in four years and it was just a whirlwind. So it's probably was, it probably was a medical bill from the hospital, but, and it was Christmas time and I was just making little tiny payments as I could. I was really faithful. We were really faithful in doing that. Very consistent. And I remember, I can't remember why I even called, I had to call about the payment maybe I didn't know if it make it in time before Christmas. I didn't want to be late. I don't know, but for whatever reason I called. And, And the woman who was the finance person for this doctor happened to be his wife. So I'm talking to her and she said, you know what? It's Christmas time. She said, don't worry about the payment. And I was like, Oh, thank you so much. Okay. Well, I'll pick back up in January. And she said, no, don't worry about the balance. It's forgiven. And I could cry right now. I was like, what? I mean, it wasn't, then it was a ton of money. We just didn't have it. Yeah. And for her to say, nevermind, it's just forgiven. Merry Christmas. I just, it was, I just couldn't wait to tell this. I thought you're never going to believe what happened. So that was one. She doesn't know me. I don't know if she was a believer. but the Lord blessed and moved on someone's heart to be generous. And so that was one. I had told this funny story, which I'm embarrassed about, but we had friends. I was like, what story? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This one. We had friends and, with kids about our same age and she and I were great friends. We're all great friends. Well, she was a stay at home mama. I was as well. Our husbands work. He worked at the bank and I didn't balance my checkbook like ever. I just, they didn't teach you that in high school and literally I just got out of high school. You were a baby. You were a baby. So I didn't do it. And we were at a small group function together and I'm like, they were talking about, I don't know, checkbooks, I guess. And I go, Oh, I don't balance my checkbook. And my friend, she said, Oh, well, do you ever bounce? And I go, no, we've never bounced. Not even one time. Just, you don't even need to balance your checkbook. Come to find out. Years later, years later, her husband, who works at the bank, could see our account. So when we were low, he put money in it. So here I am saying, I'm so irresponsible and I never balance my checkbook. And it never matters. It did matter. But somebody was covering that for us. And that was their generosity for me. And so I'm very humbled by that. it was, I'm going to count it up to immaturity. Do you balance your checkbook now? No, because I do it online. So I don't, it doesn't for me. I don't either. Yeah. I don't even, do I use the check? I don't, I don't know. I just, my HOA payment is the only thing I use. Checks are bank account usually. Yeah. My check, checkbook for, so anywho. so those are some examples of just people being very kind and, and we also had, groceries on the porch or money in the mailbox or, I'm, I'm feeling like I need to do better to recognize that people around me, that are in need and I, I don't know if it's cause my kids, you know, my kids are grown, so I'm not in those facets with other, younger families and it doesn't have to necessarily be a younger family, but I just need to be. I want to be more intentional about that. Here's something I've been thinking about. We, we live in Williamson County, which is a very, affluent Part of the country. And so I have found myself questioning why I don't see people in need a lot, like financial need. I see people probably in spiritual need a lot, but financially I don't see a lot of people in need. And so to challenge myself to go and find those people, like whether it be like volunteering at the Nashville rescue mission or just opening up your eyes to, to seeing people that are in different. Places than you because I just don't think we're going to see as much of that where we live in particular but if we will work and Go outside of that I think we I think our eyes will be open and we will see that there is a lot of that happening here in our Area, just maybe not necessarily in our neighborhoods or in our churches Specifically just because of of where we live So I do feel a challenge from the lord on that to be like no lily You You can go seek that out, my people are in need, they are in desperate need. Go find them. Yes, yeah, that's what I'm, thinking in, by using the word intentional. Like, I just, I need to be more intentional. And The United States in itself is very, very wealthy, whether we're living in an affluent county or not. And we just accidentally got here, I'm not affluent y'all, this is where we got transferred. But, and there's other ways we can give again, not just monetarily, if we would be intentional and, and seek out ways to do that, And yeah. And ways that don't necessarily, involve money either. it's a challenge. It is. For all year, not just, but, especially at Christmas. So we, talked a little bit about getting families involved. our kids always did operation. Christmas child. Yeah, load the shoe box. They love going to the grocery store and are you doing that? What do you have something we we grabbed some angel tree? Yes, which our church had a tree And so I grabbed them from our tree at church But I also was at the mall the other day and they had an angel tree set up. it was by the salvation army People and you could walk up and grab one of those cards So if you don't go to a church or whatever if you're in a different area of the church I think that most of the Salvation Army tables have that tree set up, so you could grab that to do, do it with your kids. If you're a single person, do it yourself, get a group of friends together to do it. I think there's a lot of ways to share that. together And God loves a cheerful giver. So I want to, I want to be that. Yes. Well, as we wrap up, do you have any scriptures you want to share? Do you have any other, examples you want to share? I have, well, you said it, the cheerful giver that's in, I think second Corinthians, I believe, as a good one. And then again, the Matthew 621 for where your treasure is, your heart will be also, I don't think it's surprising to Christ followers to know that generosity is something that the Lord asks of us. Yeah. you had mentioned from the Bible project that he was the example of generosity. God wasn't sending his son and sharing him with us. So that we can all experience, rebirth and salvation. And, to be an example to the world, as he is, so to be generous. Yes. thank you guys for listening today. We are so happy to be, Riding with you in your car, sitting in the car rider line, with you on your coffee break or your lunch break. We just love getting to, just to talk to you and we hope that you're enjoying it too. So thanks for listening. And until next time, we love you guys.