Find Genuine Contentment When You Flex The Generosity Muscle.
Today, I add another layer to how to become CONTENT in your life today. Add to your hard work and thankfulness a spirit of generosity to combat the scarcity mindset.
I chose ‘CONTENT’ in January as my 2024 Word of the Year. It’s a practice I’ve used for the last 13 years to stimulate inward and outward growth. Here is a list of words I’ve worked through over that time:
2011 - Freedom
2012 - Risk
2013 - Transform
2014 - Vision
2015 - Attack
2016 - Bold
2017 - Restore
2018 - Create
2019 - Courage
2020 - Next
2021 - Stride
2022 - Bravery
2023 - Peace
2024 - Content
Some years have been more fruitful than others in this timeframe, but over the past nearly fifteen years, this has been by far one of the most important activities I’ve participated in.
We’re halfway through the year, so I’m sharing my takeaways. I encourage you to reflect on your own world—whether you’re participating in this project or not. What have you learned to this point in the year?
Last week, I gave two quick tips: hard work and thankfulness. Today, I add one of the core building blocks — generosity.
Scarcity, Generosity, and Contentment
Below are two notes I made toward the beginning of the year (the first was on January 2nd).
I am not naturally generous.
It pains me to write that. I don’t know if it is because I grew up with a sense of lack (we were pretty poor when I was a kid—to the point I didn’t realize how poor we were until my junior high and high school years). It could be that I am just a naturally selfish person.
As an adult, I have lacked very little. We aren’t extravagantly wealthy, but we are by no means poor. However, my wealth hasn’t made generosity any easier. In some ways, it has made the fear of scarcity even worse.
I work to be generous.
Thankfully, I have a wife with a very different disposition toward generosity. She grew up just as poor (or more so) than I did, so I guess that excuse doesn’t hold water. She, though, naturally gives and shares.
Considering those thoughts, here are four perspectives that have helped me cultivate a spirit of generosity.
1. We are stewards, not owners.
The King Poet, David, gave us this perspective of God concerning stuff:
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.
The world and all its people belong to him. -Psalms 24:1
We know from the story of creation that God designed the world to be overseen by humanity. We were to take God’s creation, be fruitful and multiply.1 This was the consistent story throughout the Old Testament: God would give his people gifts and ask them to oversee them.
Jesus continued this view when he spoke about the stuff of earth. In Matthew 25, Jesus told three stories about different things (10 bridesmaids2 and their lamps, 3 servants and a small amount of money3, and clothing, feeding, and caring for the poor4). If you look carefully, you’ll see a common thread running through these stories — stewardship.
All three groups of these people were entrusted with resources (lamps, money, ability to care), and all three were expected to use these resources to the best of their ability. Those who misuse their resources are cursed and left out of God’s kingdom. The ones who best use God’s gifts are exalted.
Contentment comes when I realize what I have is not mine. It belongs to God and is designed to flow through me. I am to be wise and discerning. I am to care for my family first. But it all belongs to God, and He expects me to expand His Kingdom with what He’s given me.
2. God promises provision.
This year's Bible Project feed (YouTube and podcast) focuses on the Sermon on the Mount. Following along in their study has been so enlightening. I am constantly seeing this text and Jesus in a new light.
Jesus has much to say about money and stuff in the Sermon on the Mount. Most famously, he addresses this in Matthew 6, right after the Lord’s Prayer. One thing I’ve learned about the Sermon on the Mount this year is how it is like a concentric circle that builds inward toward the Lord’s Prayer and then back out.
In other words, the core of the message is found in the Lord’s Prayer and works its way out from there (from both sides). This means Jesus' words about material possessions are some of his most important thoughts in this opus.
Jesus tells us to look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. God provides for all of their needs. They don’t worry about what will or won’t come to them. They trust their Creator. He ends those thoughts with these words:
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” -Matthew 6:31-34
Notice what Jesus is saying. Scarcity isn’t a part of the life of Jesus’ followers. It doesn’t mean it will always be easy, but there will always be enough. The key is trusting in God for all your needs.
The late NYC pastor and theologian Tim Keller once said this:
“Life never goes, except for a few years at a time, the way you want…” -Tim Keller
Contentment comes with this mindset: knowing that we are forced to trust God in all areas of provision.
3. Palms Up Living
One of my favorite authors is Donald Miller. He started as a Christian memoirist and has since pivoted (very successfully) to business marketing. Miller introduced me to Bob Goff, who has become popular in the Christian world.
One of the takeaways I received from Bob Goff is ‘Palms Up Living.’
Goff was a lawyer for years. When preparing his clients for depositions, he instructed them to sit at the table with their hands open, face up, under the table. He told them this because he knew holding back the truth or being angry with hands open and facing up was much harder.
What is true in the world of law is just as applicable to living a content life.
If my spiritual hands are open facing up, I allow God to flow through me. What he has for me — to receive and give — is open and available. I’m not keeping God from blessing me. I’m not hiding or holding onto anything.
4. Develop the generosity habit.
When something isn’t natural, we must build that area of our lives like muscles. You build muscle in your life by creating habits that work those muscles.
What trips me up most often is confusing the intention of generosity with the act of generosity. I’ll often think about doing a generous act, but too often, I won’t follow through. I must move on to the action part for the muscle of generosity to grow.
I’m sitting at a coffee shop writing this today, where I witnessed two teenage girls flex their muscles of generosity. An older woman was walking into the shop from the parking lot when she became faint. The girls jumped to her aid. They grabbed a chair to sit in and helped her get into it. While one girl went inside to pick up her order, the other girl waited with the woman in the parking lot and then moved her car into a position to allow her to easily get inside.
By their behavior, I assumed they were the woman’s grandkids. However, she drove away, and they stayed. These girls didn’t think about being generous. They were generous. I don’t know these girls, but I am inspired to be more like them.5
As I work and flex my generosity muscles, they will grow. As my generosity grows, so does my contentment. My ability to be content grows with my generous spirit.
Appreciate Contentment
In the second screenshot of my notes from earlier this year, you may have noticed this quote:
“What you appreciate appreciates.” -Lynn Twist
I want to live a life that appreciates contentment. As I do, contentment will grow (or appreciate) over time. A great way to see this happen is to become more generous. I must fight against a scarcity mindset, be a good steward of what God has given me, and develop the muscles of generosity.
Genesis 1-2
Matthew 25:1-13
Matthew 25:14-30
Matthew 25:31-46
After watching them do this kind act, I worked to flex my own generosity muscles. I took a bit of cash I had randomly withdrawn at Target yesterday, approached them, gave them the cash, and thanked them for their kindness. This should have been easy, but it was so hard for some reason.