Encouraging Words-"Give It And Get It. Got It?"

One person gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what they should give, and only suffers want. - Proverbs 11:24

My latest issue of Guitar Player magazine arrived in the mail just as the deadline for this issue drew near. Stuck to the front of the magazine was an advertisement informing me that giving a subscription to a lucky guitarist I know would be the "perfect gift."

The slogan on the ad was: "Give it and get it. Got it?"

Yes, I got it - but not in the way the magazine's editors might have hoped. For me the message was not about giving a gift subscription to a magazine, but about the larger message: If we give it, we get it. I got it.

The message of the passage from Proverbs took on a whole new depth for me. We all know the much parroted, but rarely followed line from the Prayer of St. Francis that tells us that "it is in giving that we receive," but we don't really "get it." Rarely do those words sink so deeply into our souls and hearts that we can't help but live them out.

When we really "get it" - when we understand that if we give freely we grow richer - or if we are stingy we will suffer - then generosity will be like breathing for us. Giving will be a reflexive action - an involuntary response to all the need around us. We really "get it" - that giving is what we have truly been born to do with our lives.

Lest anyone accuse me of preaching a prosperity gospel, let me say up front, when I say those who give freely get richer, I'm not talking about money, and neither is the author of Proverbs. The Hebrew word used here is yacaph, which simply means "to increase" or "to add." The passage tells us that whatever we give will increase - not just those who receive, but the giver as well.

Click here to read the entire essay at Whosoever.org.