Giving
My sweet husband has been preaching a series of sermons around a book written by the former CEO of World Vision, Richard Stearns, called “A Hole in Our Gospel.” The idea behind the book is that we should not be so focused on getting to heaven, but rather by bringing heaven to earth. And how do we do that? It’s by serving others. It’s by giving and treating people the way we would want them to treat us.
Every moment of our lives is an opportunity to serve others. Can we commit decision by decision to this heartfelt approach to life?
Oprah said in one of her recent podcasts, “There is a yearning for a different way to view the world. How do we elevate humanity? All humans have value and a voice…. Our legacy is every life who is touched by what you’ve given to them. What energy do you choose to bring to the world?”
We can structure our decisions today around how we want to be remembered. Have you ever tried writing your obituary? A course I took from Donald Miller’s Business Made Simple University suggests that we write our obituary from the lens of what we want others to say about us at our funeral. We read it every morning and remember to live in the way that makes people around us say these things about us. This gets us focused daily on how we serve others well.
The following are a few quotes from Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday podcast about the power of giving to others. I hope you enjoy them and are inspired by them as I was!
Brian Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: “When we see people treated unfairly, those of us with a heart for compassion need to step in to stop the unfair judgments… We often measure our lives by our bank accounts or how many people know us, but there’s another way. Measure yourself by how often you are able to help others. There is power and transformation in catching the stones that others throw at each other.”
Thich Nhat Hahn: “Compassionate listening helps relieve the suffering of the other person. Listening with the purpose to help him or her to empty their heart. If you remember you are helping them to suffer less, even if they are bitter, and you continue to listen with compassion, you give them a chance to suffer less… just listen with compassion. It can bring transformation and healing.”
Hahn gives us the script to heal relationships: “Dear [people], I know you suffer a lot. I have not understood all your suffering. It is not my intention for you to suffer more. Quite the opposite. Please tell me about your suffering and difficulties. I am eager to understand.” This is the only way to truly understand and end so much suffering. This principle works within nations, friendships, and family systems. Let’s use the script often.
Deepak Chopra: “In long hours of meditation, you realize there is body, mind, and soul consciousness. In touch with your soul consciousness, you realize other people also have a soul, and you communicate. You realize you are both part of a divine realm, called divine consciousness. You realize we are all inseparably one.”
Charles Einstein: “We live in communities where we don’t know the people around us. We feel lonely. Our sense of being in the world depends on our relationships. And when our intimate relationships are only in the family, when we don’t participate in the natural world in an intimate way, we don’t know who we are and we feel alone. There is a deficit of identity when we shrink down into these little separate selves…. You are the mirror of all things and the totality of your relationships. That means that anything that happens to any being, is happening to you on some level. It means any difficult relationship you have is mirroring something in yourself. It means that everything you do to the world will somehow come back to you. It means the world outside of ourselves is not just a bunch of stuff, it’s a mirror of self. It has qualities like consciousness and intelligence that aren’t just in human beings, and everything that is happening in the world is happening to us. Whether or not we believe it, we can still feel it. That’s why it hurts. So much. And we don’t even know why. “
Lynn Twist. “When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy that’s caught up in that chase, to turn and pay attention to what you already have. When you actually pay attention to, nourish, love, and share what you already have, it expands. It is the opposite of what we think… When you share it, it gets bigger… When people know that it frees them from this chase for more, more, more. Because there is so much energy tied up in that in everybody’s life. Even people who are just barely rubbing 2 nickels together to pay their rent. If they turn and pay attention to what they have, make a difference with it, share it, nourish it, it expands before their very eyes. A shorter way to say it is, ‘what you appreciate appreciates.’ How you have that experience of sufficiency and enough is by sharing, by contributing, by serving, by nourishing other people. That’s where real prosperity lives.”
Gary Zukov. “Treat other people the way you’d like them to treat you because they will. That’s the short of it. Give to the world what you want to receive from the world because you will receive that.”
Hafiz. “Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me’.” Just think what a love like that can do… it lights up the whole world. All you have to do is give and practice divine love.
Let’s give our best effort to use the gifts and talents God gave each of us to be used for the highest good, serving others. I’d love to hear your plan!
