Towards the end of my Race I wrote a blog about generosity. You can feel free to read the post here. The topic was something I had been working on in my own life essentially since the beginning of the journey and I finally felt a nudge that was too strong to ignore. I felt led to write about generosity, to extend the invitation for further donations, and explain my reasoning.
As can be true with many well-intentioned ideas, the blog likely came across as slightly presumptuous.
I’d like to take the time to address a few issues while simultaneously asking for grace to be extended because I need it every single day in every aspect of my life. I’ll maintain that I felt like I needed to write that blog to let go of some of my own pride but it seems I possibly could have come across as ungrateful. Asking for others to give me money to then give some of it and call it my own generosity?
I’ve admittedly had better ideas and delivery.
It seems that a good starting point to begin would be to define generosity. In the midst of a discussion, my brother asked me the thought-provoking question of what my definition of generosity actually is. Here’s my answer:
Generosity is giving of yourself, your time, your resources, your skills, and anything else along those lines, in such a way that you have no expectation of getting something in return. It is giving to those who will not have the ability to pay you back in whatever currency you blessed them with be it time, skill-set, finances, you name it. Finally, generosity can be (and often is) giving in circumstances where you will not receive credit.
My mindset in that blog was to set aside my pride and ask for additional funds to finish out the trip, but I felt strongly that anything I received should not go entirely to me, it should be shared. I’ll be the first to admit that taking someone else’s generosity and then calling it my own seems a bit far-reaching and unfair to those who offer what they have. On the flip side, I wanted to work on the concept of tithing all that God gives me and in this season of life, any donation that comes through is what I have to work with, and thus, offered up the idea of receiving help with working on generosity.
To anyone who may have been rubbed the wrong way about that generosity blog, I’m so sorry. My intention was never to take advantage or take credit for anything that you generously gave, rather it was to fight my own pride and selfishness by trying to be open. Could it have been done better? I think that goes without saying.
Now that I’ve walked you through that process, it is high time to offer another thank you to anyone who supported me on the World Race journey. If you so much as took the time to like one of the pictures I posted, I’d consider myself supported and there were those who donated, bought t-shirts, read, commented on my blog, and just generally communicated encouragement with prayer. I’m speechless at the community that surrounded me as I took this terrifying and extremely necessary step in my faith. You have blessed me richly and I am forever changed. My hope is that with the next few blogs I hope to post, you’ll continue to get a taste of just what transformations happened while I was away.
In my next post, I plan to answer the ever-popular question of “what’s next?” in a lot of detail.
More to come.
