Book + Excerpt: Generosity

Introduction to Generosity

An excerpt from Everything Good about God is True: Choosing Faith (Broadleaf Books, 2024), pp 117-119

When our kids were young, one of our favorite family activities was going to the animal shelter. We’d walk through the rows of puppies, kittens, dogs, cats, and other creatures for an hour or two, talking with the animals and petting them and playing with them when staff allowed it. Our children, now young adults, have fond memories of those visits.

Want to know the real reason we took our kids to the animal shelter? We could not afford to take them to the zoo. For a long time when our children were young, we could barely pay for groceries, special lunch items, or field trip money. We lived near plenty of family, so we were never in danger of being unhoused or going hungry. But when we lost our home and moved our family of five into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, we did it out of necessity, not because we wanted to downsize. We were in poverty.

We are in a much better financial situation now. Robin and I have always tried to be appropriately transparent about our financial situation with our kids, so as they moved toward adulthood, we let them in on the fact that, for much of their childhood, we lived under the poverty line even though we were both working. Only then did they realize that some of the things that we did when they were young were not because we were cool or creative but simply because we were poor.

I would never say being poor is good for people, or that struggle is the only way one gains perspective. These are both problematic postures toward those who have no choice in the matter. But our kids see the world through a different lens than many of their peers do. I think growing up with very few extras has made them more compassionate and empathic. For example, we don’t joke about any restaurants being “low class,” because we remember the days when going out to eat—even for fast food—was a special occasion. We don’t shame people for making bad food choices, because we know what it is like to eat bean soup five days in a row because that’s all you can afford. And we certainly do not judge people by the cars they drive, because we know what it’s like to have a car break down and have no idea how you will drop your kids off at school next week.

Again, we had supportive family around us, so we had the privilege of knowing that we could borrow money, move in with someone, or otherwise avoid having to make life-endangering choices. At the end of the day, we always had enough. Even when we were struggling, we tried to model being generous with what you have. We taught our kids that the point of life is not to accumulate or hoard but to steward wisely what you do have. We tried to follow God’s call, trusting ourselves to make good decisions and believing that, in doing so, all would be okay and that we would have enough.

Simply put, we can be generous because God has been generous to us.

We don’t give our time, our energy, and our talents so that God will love us more. We are not generous because we are trying to earn something or because our generosity will somehow make God treat us better than that schmuck on the corner. We are generous because of the generosity of the resurrection. We respond to the needs around us because God has promised to love us not only now but throughout eternity. We respond in the world as if that gift matters. The resurrection compels us to be generous.

Each day, as we tune ourselves toward God’s hope for the world, the Spirit reminds us to be generous because God has been generous to us.