This is a meditation on chapter 17 from our Way of Life.

Be Gracious with Everyone, Generous in Spirit, and Forgive Quickly

Am I generous, gracious, and forgiving? Am I as generous, gracious, and forgiving as Jesus was, and asks me to be? That second question gets me. Of course I am not. I believe I am more than I was a decade ago though, and that is a grace that God has given me as I have put the work in.

It’s easy for me to be selfish with my time, my things, and my energy. Like many people in the west, I was brought up to be fairly guarded. Protective of how much I give, or give up. Not overly generous with any one thing, lest I get taken advantage of, or not have enough for myself. This isn’t the way of Jesus. Jesus gave what he had. He had compassion on people, even when they may end up harming him.

When I think about embodying the person and attributes of Jesus, I know I need to come back to myself. Reflecting on how I treat myself. I’m unsure I can give others too much beyond what I am able to give to myself. I’m often hard on myself, and it can be hard to be generous to myself, giving myself grace and love in those spaces. Living in the society we do, I’m told to do better. Produce more. Do more. Be more. Even if it comes at a great cost to me. It is easy to get caught up in that mentality. It becomes exhausting, leaving little energy for the better things in life. It does not seem like generosity when it is demanded and taken from me.

Having generosity in how I treat myself and how I treat others goes hand in hand. I believe Jesus meets me with a gentle, gracious love every time I succeed and every time I fail. Yet I don’t always meet myself with that same gentle response. How wonderful would that be, where each time I failed, I gave myself the love and grace Jesus does? And others around me also had enough kindness and generosity to give me that grace? This is what I hope to embody for others. To be a person who is generous with the light and life I bring with me. It pushes me to extend that generosity to others, knowing most of us don’t receive it often enough, and may not even know it is missing in our life. To look beyond the immediate, and understand that what is needed is more kindness and love. I know this to be true because it is what I need.

Jesus came to bring His Kingdom to earth. Not to produce more or do better, but to let love permeate more. To extend loving generosity to every corner of creation. As a part of that creation, I’m taking it upon myself to be just a little bit of that in this world.

Photo Credit
Jordan Prins on 17 September 2024 in Spokane, Washington – United States.