Wisdom of the fortune cookie
The fortune cookie said: “If you continually give, you will continually have.”
Most Christians pretty much rely on Scripture for guidance, but occasionally inspiration will strike suddenly from elsewhere. Getting the fortune “If you continually give, you will continually have” in the midst of our annual pledge effort really took me up short. I don’t expect such fundamentals of our beliefs about stewardship to surface following a serving of pork lo mein.
“If you continually give, you will continually have.” That sounds like a self-contradictory statement, but it strikes at the heart of our beliefs about stewardship. It is a truth Jesus reinforces by word and deed throughout his life. In God’s economy, those who give have all that they need. That’s the way that God’s economy works. What God provides us, he expects us to share with others.
This giving is not just a money thing either. Too often we equate stewardship with money because that is what we hold on to tightest. But, stewardship and giving are intended to permeate every aspect of our lives in God’s economy. It becomes so much easier to loosen our grip on our possessions when giving is a basic part of who we are.
In an adult education session, the group I was leading paged through a typical, benign, consumer magazine and looked at the messages that tried to grab us on every page. It actually was comical. Page after page, advertising messages sought to convince us that we are lacking in many aspects of our lives and if we just purchase the right possessions or use the right products, we will be better people. The clever, engaging, entrapping, messages are what it takes for manufacturers to get their products noticed and purchased in a very competitive marketplace.
The side-effect of all of these sales messages is that we subconsciously come to be convinced that we have perpetually unmet needs. We continually fall short. We experience a continuous scarcity of whatever it is that we need in order to be fulfilled, happy, human beings. We must consume and consume and consume if ever we can even approach satisfaction.
God offers something quite different. His economy is one of abundance. The only appropriate thing to do with abundance is to give from it. We can only come to enjoy our abundance when we recognize it as such and give from it without reservation. . “If you continually give, you will continually have.”
(by the way, the lucky numbers on the fortune cookie fortune were 16, 17, 23, 24, 28, and 36 and the Chinese word for telephone is Dian-hua)
