Give

336. neighbors, an opportunity to love thy neighbor even when its not easy and then God making a way for it be be easy!
337. new friends who have some of the same interests
338. kids praying and being thankful for our family (what!)
339. helping others, the ability and desire to do so

I was listening to a clip of Francis Chan this morning about thithing and recently I have heard new perspective on it so I of course wanted to know more. It is not about a number or percent you give, but what matters most is that you give cheerfully. Those that give more will reap more, those that give less will reap less.

I don't think that means give more money get more money and Chan doesn't either. Give more so that God may choose to bless you with more so that you may in turn give even more! I love it. Who doesn't love to give? Okay its not easy to do I know, but when you look at it through Christ glasses you see that as Chan said, Jesus gave up all the riches and comforts of heaven to become poor so that we could be rich in Him. What a blessing for us believers, now we get to choose to give up of ourselves to help someone else see what awaits them if they so choose to follow Christ.

Give up what? $-yes sometimes, time, possessions, food, clothes, give your ears, your hugs, your caring--give it and be blessed so that you may get more and be able to bless more.

We are really excited about getting back our taxes because we are planning to use some of the money to bless various others. We are excited to support our friends in their going and being on mission in the Philipines and sponsor a child and support St. Jude, and even more excited to ask our son what he thinks we should do with some of the money--to learn where his heart is in this. Granted he is 4 (almost 5) and doesn't know exactly what it means, its not his money so of course it is easy for him to give it up, but he understands needs. I've shown him videos and he sees needs of children to be fed. He sees homeless people while driving and says we need to give them food so they won't be hungry. He gets it to an extent and we want to water that seed.