Thursday, April 25, 2019

Proverbs 22:9 -- On Having a Bountiful Eye

"He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor."
Proverbs 22:9


I like the idea of having a "bountiful eye" ... seeing the world as a place of abundance rather than scarcity, or just being generous. :)  It is something that is sometimes hard for us, because our society frequently teaches us to hold on to what we have and not to squander it.  And I am not saying that resourcefulness, thrift, self-reliance, or hard work are bad things.  They are not.  But I also think that God's ways are different than ours, and that he really means it when he says "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matthew 5:42).

I think it is akin to the idea of tithing.  We think about tithing with the world's logic and we're like... what?  Why would we do that?  Ten percent of everything we earn?  We already are barely scraping by!  ... And if we think about it from the world's perspective, then we probably just think that some greedy church is trying to get our money, and it's a financially foolish thing to do.  But God's ways are different, and paying tithing actually brings amazing blessings and ensures that we always have enough.  It doesn't make sense logically unless we factor God into our logic.... and when we do, tithing is a no-brainer.

Having a bountiful eye, or always giving to others, is kind of the same idea.  It requires a lot of faith in God, and it likely has some boundaries and planning that goes along with it that tithing doesn't necessarily have, just because when you are working with humans rather than deity, there are going to be complications.  ... Those should be worked out with prayer, so that we know how God wants us to help in individual cases.  However, the overall idea remains.  We should be learning to be generous people and thinking about and helping the people around us.  Someday when we live in a perfect society we won't have to worry about complications or exceptions, but we also can't *wait* to learn the principle until we live in a perfect society, because we need to create that society, and be the basis of it.

Today, let's make a concerted effort to do things God's way rather than the world's way.  Let's find ways to be generous, and to help the people around us.  Let's give of ourselves and bless others any way we can.

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