Give give, give what?

Giving is one term that I hear all the time. I have often times wondered what is to be given! I have observed that the one thing people equate giving to is money.

Let’s see what Scripture says about that:

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. ” Luke 6:38 NLT

The above Scripture does not exactly say what is to be given. I however have a few as per the whisper of the Holy Spirit.

You can give love.

You can give time

You can give care

You can give a lift/ride

You can give someone a break

You can give comfort

You can give a smile

You can give food

You get the idea! Why I think giving money is easier for most people is because they lack the time to be there for others. It is easier to send money to a grieving friend than actually be there physically.

It’s easier for parents to give money and gifts or whatever the children want than to give of their time and presence because they need to work longer hours for money or other things.

It is much more convenient to give money for festivities to relatives than visit them because it is going to cost too much to visit them anyway.

This brings me to another aspect I remember from my childhood. Mum would send us upcountry to bond with grandma. This included adventure and fighting with all the other visiting cousins. During those visits, we would do whatever tasks assigned whether we urban kids liked it or not. One of those was harvesting crops. Grandma would issue strict instructions to leave some crops unharvested especially at the edges. I always wondered why that was the case. She once explained that the Bible says to do so. That was the way to GIVE to the poor who have no crops or anything to harvest. At that point I did not fully understand until I started to seriously read the Bible. Check this out;

“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 23:22 NLT

My unschooled grandma knew the Word better than most educated Bible believing people. She knew how to give. Half of the shopping and clothes we took her were shared among the nearby homesteads to our utter shock.

Even Boaz was used of God to give food to Naomi and Ruth by commanding the workers to deliberately drop some crop.

What are you going to give today?