Collaborating with God |
Nov 12, 2009 |
In my last post I wrote about my trip to Seoul, Korea and one of the insights I gained while there. This week I'd like to share another -- one that ties into the definition of Transformational Giving (TG).
As a champion of Seoul USA (SUSA: the organization I volunteered with in Seoul), I'm aware that they are an organization that takes a serious TG approach with their champions. As true as that is though, I was falling short of my own commitment to TG. The complete definition of TG is "a collaboration between you and God in which He infuses your corporate and personal assets with His grace as you offer them in the way He asks to the people and purposes that He directs." Lots of rich content here, but I'm only going to address the first part for today, which is that it's a collaboration between you and God.
What does it mean when you give in collaboration with God? For one thing, it means giving prayerfully, but I've come to realize that this must go way beyond that first prayer about whether or not to give to a particular organization or cause. Once God leads you to give, He doesn't just drop you off and say "Here you go, enjoy your time!" Don't you think if God leads you to a particular cause that He does so for a reason? And then that you need to be in continual prayer about what He wants to accomplish through you within this cause? I think definitely yes!
Confession time, though. I have fallen considerably short of going deeper with my prayer about this cause of the persecuted church, and listening to how God wants me to be involved in it. Looking back, I remember my initial involvement was a prayerful process, but then once I got into the rhythm of giving, I stopped asking what God wanted to do with my involvement, how He wanted to grow me and how He wanted to use me to grow others. (Last week I talked about this lukewarm attitude - it's oh, so very dangerous!)
To truly allow our giving to be a collaboration between us and God, we need to be in continuous prayer about what next step to take. What is it that we can do that will challenge us to grow in our understanding, to grow in our experience and ultimately to grow in our faith?
I submit that we should be praying over every check we write - is this the amount we should be giving this time (isn't it easy to set an amount early on then never challenge ourselves if we should be doing more??) We should be praying over every opportunity that is presented - should we volunteer, should we write that letter to a prisoner, should we drop off a bag of food, etc. We should be praying daily that our eyes and hearts are open to ways that we can serve God through this cause He called us to.
This is certainly something I'd challenge you to consider in your own life, but it is also something to challenge your champions with. Let us encourage each other and spur one another on so that "our God may count (us) worthy of his calling, and that by his power He may fulfill every good purpose of (ours) and every act prompted by (our) faith" (2 Thessalonians 1:11).
