It is a strange paradox...
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It is a strange paradox that we admire generosity a great deal, while hesitating to be generous, ourselves. Few things in life give us more joy than giving, but we hold back for reasons we do not always understand. By giving, we feel stronger, better, and a part of something larger than ourselves. We love to give, but something in us is also loathe to give. We're basically generous, we say, but we have to take care of ourselves first.
John Eliot, a seventeenth-century missionary, was noted for his generosity. His yearly salary of fifty pounds was given almost entirely to charity. Once the secretary of the missionary society tried to protect him from his own generosity. The secretary took Eliot's pay and tied a portion of it into each of the four corners of a handkerchief. Then he pulled the knots and tightened them as much as he could before handing the handkerchief to Eliot.
On his way home, Eliot met a woman whose appearance indicated dire poverty. He stopped to speak to her, and soon his heart was so touched that he reached into his pocket to get a coin for her. For some time he pulled and pulled at those knots, but could not access his money. Finally he rolled the handkerchief into a ball and handed it to her saying, "My dear woman, I think the Lord meant for you to have it all." Eliot had learned what many Christians need to learn: "God loves a cheerful giver."
John Eliot, a seventeenth-century missionary, was noted for his generosity. His yearly salary of fifty pounds was given almost entirely to charity. Once the secretary of the missionary society tried to protect him from his own generosity. The secretary took Eliot's pay and tied a portion of it into each of the four corners of a handkerchief. Then he pulled the knots and tightened them as much as he could before handing the handkerchief to Eliot.
On his way home, Eliot met a woman whose appearance indicated dire poverty. He stopped to speak to her, and soon his heart was so touched that he reached into his pocket to get a coin for her. For some time he pulled and pulled at those knots, but could not access his money. Finally he rolled the handkerchief into a ball and handed it to her saying, "My dear woman, I think the Lord meant for you to have it all." Eliot had learned what many Christians need to learn: "God loves a cheerful giver."
