The Generous Soul

What does giving really cost you?

Whenever somebody asks for help, a sum starts running at the back of your head. You add up the hours, the money and the Saturday, and the answer always comes back short.

Proverbs 11 keeps a different set of books, and it puts three proverbs in a row to show it. Verse 24 says, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Verse 25 is today's verse: "The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." Verse 26 says, "He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it." All three press the same charge against your sums. The third one is about a real grain market, and that keeps the whole thing from floating off into something vague.

Look at the words. In the KJV, liberal means generous. To scatter is to throw something wide with an open hand. "Made fat" is the language of a well-fed animal, physical and not embarrassed about it. And at the end, the one who waters others "shall be watered also himself." He does not water himself; somebody else does it for him.

This is not a method for getting rich, and reading it that way has done real damage to real people. It describes how God made the soul. What you clutch shrinks in your hand, and what you pour out comes back to you through channels you did not dig and cannot trace.

So here is an invitation, with no pressure in it. Take one name from the list of people who need something from you. Give the money, if you have it, or give the Saturday morning, or make the call you keep pushing into next week. You are welcome to find out whether your sums were wrong, and the God who gave this proverb is the One who does the watering.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 236 is He Stood and Cried (John 7:37).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna