If I were as generous as a SEVEN year old I’d make a much more SIGNIFICANT impact.
Generosity is not something many of us are natural at, but it IS something we are called, even COMMANDED to be. Now, giving is a spiritual gift that I think many people have and if they have it, it is OBVIOUS by the way they live. My daughter Makalah, has been given the gift of giving and generosity…and I LOVE it!
Makalah LIVES and LOVES to give. Not many days go by without me receiving something from her that she has made or found. When we were at Disney World this past month, she used some of the money WE had given her to use as SHE wished to buy a gift for her sister. What seven year old does that? Makalah wants to go to the Childrens Hospital for Chrsitmas and buy gifts for the kids who are sick, instead of GETTING gifts for herself. WHAT? And this past week, she did something that again blew me away.
Each week, one of our children gets a daddy date with me. (For Jonah we call it Father/Son hangout time. His idea…and I’m cool with it. HA) This last Thursday, Makalah had her date. I LOVE taking my girls on dates and my son on some hangout time and they look forward to it every month. Sabrina and I have budgeted money for each week so I can do that and the kids get to choose what we do, up to a specified dollar amount. As soon as it was Makalah’s week I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said “I want our daddy/daughter date to go buy a gift for somebody.” I told her “You understand that if you use your money to buy a gift, that’s what we’re doing for our date?” She said, almost with a “DUH dad” kind of response. “I know!”
So that’s what we did. I came home from work, had dinner with the family and took my amazing daughter on a date. I actually had a Starbucks giftcard that was given to me, so we used it to go sit down, have a donut and drink before she bought a gift for her mom. We headed to Walmart, and I walked the aisles hand in hand with Makalah as she smiled from ear to ear, living out the LIFE of generosity. She used every penny of her money to buy some things for her mom that SHE wanted to get her. It was amazing.
We ended our date by going to the mall to check out the dogs in the pet store and see the guniea pigs, snakes and lizards. (I like going down the snake aisle with her cause she holds my hand even tighter. Daddy trick) As we walked out of the mall and headed to the car, I unlocked her door and opened for her. She looked up at me before she got in the car and said “This was the BEST daddy/daughter date EVER!”
God just spoke to my heart, and I thought “MAN…If I were as generous as a SEVEN year old I’d make a much more SIGNIFICANT impact.“ Makalah LOVES to give, and I LOVE affirming that gift in her.
Friends, we belong to a RADICALLY generous God, may we be RADICALLY generous people…like my seven year old.
Learning from my daughter,
Jeff
