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Generosity is about giving away resources that we have. And as a whole, we’re a very generous people. But I bet that you’re like me. I bet most of us would like to be more generous. With our money, with our time. With our talents, gifts, skills or hobbies.
But… something holds us back. There’s some reason – and it’s different for all of us – that we say, “I can’t”.
Generosity is really a question of priorities.
That if we explore our “buts” our “I can’ts”, then we learn what we really value. Today is an opportunity for honest self-reflection.
Let’s begin with this question: What do I want?
We all want something. We all want lots of things. We want as a function of being human. We were created as wanting machines. Can anyone in here say they’ve never wanted anything?
Of course not.
So let’s think together about what we want for a minute. We want food (different foods for all of us). We want safety and security. We want entertainment (again, different for everyone). If we dig, at the bottom of all these is a desire for a full, meaningful existence. We want to feel like we matter, like our life has value.
All of our wants and desires are really an extension of this deep, fundamental, existential need. It’s not wrong to want. Desire is a morally neutral thing. It’s powerful, but neutral. What matters is how we direct our desires.
Have you ever asked the question, What do I want to want?
How do you decide what you want? How do you aim your desires?
That’s certainly not a question we usually ask. Most of us probably thought our desires just happened. That they’re an uncontrollable force that’s just there. I like asparagus and you like broccoli and that’s all there is to it. I’m a book person and you prefer movies. I like baseball and you like football. Ohio State fans are naturally brighter than people who pull for Michigan.
But that’s not true. Desire is shaped. It’s formed. And we ought to be very careful and intentional about how we shape our desires. Because most of us have misshapen, misformed desires.
According to the Scriptures, the purpose of wanting is to point us back to God.
If there's one thing our culture prizes, it's our rugged individualism. The quintessential American hero has always been the loner conquering the Great Unknown. Whether it was Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett, John Wayne's cowboy riding off into the Sunset, or the contemporary superheros like Batman or Superman, the people we prize, the person who best embodies our sense of who we are is the powerful individual.
