Giving

How much can we give? And I'm not just talking about money. I'm talking about time, energy, money, prayers and whatever else. I'm not just talking about charity. I'm talking about relationships too.

How much can we give?

Dont we look to protect ourselves only too often? Ever heard of this?

"Why should I give when I already have so little?"

Pertinent question, isn't it? Why should we give? We already have so little time. We're working 8 hours or 10 hours or 20 hours a day. We don't earn that much. Inflation's starting to get annoying. We're already so tired out when we get home from the day's activities. Weekends are treasure chests of rest. Why should we give that up?

I guess sometimes we don't count our blessings. We don't know how much we really have. We immerse ourselves in our own lives and clutch everything to ourselves as though we own them. But do we? Do we really 'own' the money we earn or the time we're given?

By now, I bet you're scratching your head wondering what in the blue blazes am I talking about, right? Patience, dear friends, I'm getting there, and for those of you who know me, you know Suspense is my middle name.. Yeah right, who am I kidding lol.

Back to the point at hand. Do we really 'own' what we receive here on earth when it can be taken so easily? I'll point out an example, and this is actually a parable from the Bible written from my memory.

There was once a rich man with a lot of land and crops. He stockpiled all his riches in warehouses and was obviously pretty proud of it. He was confident in his riches. And he made plans to live a luxurious life with the riches he had gathered. In his own words he said he would "eat, drink and be merry". By all appearances he was set for a long luxurious life.

But God said to him, "You foolish man, this very night your life will be taken from you. How then will you spend all the riches you've hoarded and enjoy your luxuries?"

Truly enough, we can all identify with this man. What excess or what little we have can be taken away just in the blink of an eye. Whether its our money or our time or our energy. These are things over which we don't have very much control of. Yeah we can go and invest our money in diversified portfolios to minimise risks, but who's to say all of those portfolios won't crash?

We can eat healthy and still get cancer (Of course I'm not advocating unhealthy eating lol). One fact of life is that we can be taken anytime. We can die anytime. And no I'm not afraid to use the word die. I could die today or tomorrow. And that's the truth.

So then why do we bother so much with hoarding? Interestingly, we hoard and yet we complain. We complain about rising prices and inflation and too little time and too tired and everything, but we fail to see how much we've been blessed. There are a lot of people out in the world who are living hand to mouth. There are a lot of people out there who have much bigger problems than a small paycheck.

Millions of people live on the brink of starvation. There are entire communities who do not have the basic amenities of schools and playgrounds and books. Multitudes of people live under the shadow of death each and every second of the day.

And we ask why we should give?

I ask in return. Why should we NOT give? What we have was given to us anyway. I don't believe we should be saving for our future when our brothers and sisters are dying from not having enough to even sustain themselves for tomorrow.

Of course I'm not asking everyone to give up jobs and go give your life working in Africa or donate evry single cent you have in the bank. It's just that as a society and as a community in general we have more than we need. We have more money than we need. We have more time and energy that we really need.

Let's give to those who need it more than we do. And its not limited to children in Africa or Myanmar. All around us we see people starving emotionally. We see people who are broken. Broken lives and broken hearts. These people need our time and our energy. They need our love.

Let's give. I believe that one does not know what love is until he's able to give without hoping for anyting in return. Let's give because we love.

After all, we're surrounded by people who have given to us. We've had parents who gave all they had for us (for some of us perhaps not). We've had teachers who sacrificed to make us better people. We've got a God who gave His all for us.

So let's open our hearts to give of ourselves to others. Life does not revolve around us. Never did and never will.