There is a desire within each of us to be generous, but sometimes it can be difficult to live out what we want to do.
Thrivent Financial CEO Brad Hewitt and psychologist Jim Moline share a new perspective about being a generous giver. Their book is Your New Money Mindset.
We find reasons not to give, so how do we change our mindset to be that of a generous giver?
“There are small things that you can do to start. You don’t just wake up one day and say ‘I’m going to be generous.’ It’s a practice like most things in the Christian life that you can start small and work up to it.” – Brad Hewitt
Little things like daily prayer time with God, praying over meals, and finding small blessings to be thankful for add up to a very big thing in terms of how it impacts your heart. However, we can’t do it on our own.
“How do we, as a community, help each other even with those small things? To actually hold each other accountable, to constantly be helping one another and encouraging one another along the journey?” – Brad Hewitt
How can we gauge if we are growing in generosity? Jim Moline points to wisdom in Proverbs 11:24.
“The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.’ (MSG)
By looking at how our world has grown over the last year we are able to understand how we are progressing in cultivating a heart of generosity.
“And I think that’s how you gauge it. If my world’s getting bigger, and that has nothing to do with money, if I can look back on this year and say ‘my world’s getting better. I have, maybe, more friends, I’ve had more opportunities to give away my time, or I’ve had more time to read books because I wasn’t chasing after stuff,’ then I have a sense that my heart’s growing more open.”
“If my world is getting smaller and I don’t like what I see, that’s probably a good indicator that I’m not moving on the path toward generosity.”
We also must keep in mind the idea of being a cheerful giver. God doesn’t ask us to give because He needs it; it’s all His anyway. God asks us to give because He wants us to be joyful people who feel blessed and give cheerfully to show that we’re living humbly for Him.
Generosity strengthens communities and also strengthens our relationship with God. By starting small and then gradually having our world get bigger and our generosity grow, we can find a joy in being obedient to God and carrying out His will.
Take the new money mindset assessment and find out more about the book.
