I don't know if it started when I joined the Stewardship Ministry Team, as I can't remember ever having a real need to use this phrase prior to that, but I am someone who frequently uses the phrase (or some variation of) "giving of ourselves." As someone who writes things here and there for stewardship, you can see how this phrase might come into play. As we all came to embrace the idea of stewardship as the cultivation of our spiritual relationship with God through the giving of our time, talents, and treasures, it seemed fitting to think of this as "giving of ourselves." The obvious sacrifice of "giving of ourselves" seemed to go along so well with the sacrifices that all of us were making in our stewardship, and I found a deeper element rooted in some sort of implication that this phrase implied giving everything we had to give, even pieces of ourselves. It added a sort of emotional connection to what we were doing, by claiming that which we were giving as a part of "ourselves." We were not just donating to the food pantries, we were giving of ourselves. We were not just volunteering to work at the pumpkin patch, we were giving all of our time that we could muster. Now, I find a problem with this phrase.
The problem, to me, is that this phrase makes what we are doing all about us, when it really is not. These gifts that we are sharing with the world through our stewardship, these gifts that we claim as our gifts or as a part of ourselves, are gifts that we have already been blessed with by the spirit. These "spiritual gifts," though different based on the individual, are given to each of us so that we make take them out into the world and use them to bring God's will to fruition. We are called to use them. Yet, when we do use them, too often it is not in answering the call to share these gifts in every opportunity. It is using these gifts at a time and in a way that is convenient for us and our schedules. It is "giving of ourselves" rather than utilizing the gifts of the spirit that we have been given to their fullest in order to bring about Kingdom. However, we are getting better, and are beginning to act in a way that promotes God's will in the world without concern for self. But the question I keep coming back to in my mind is...
Does the idea that we are using these spiritual gifts out in the world to fulfill the purposes for which they were given to us warrant any sort of "sacrifice of self," or is there really as much flaw in phrases like "giving of ourselves" as I am currently seeing there to be?
Yes, it is through our stewardship and the development of our spiritual relationship with God that we are given the opportunities to share these spiritual gifts, but are they really our gifts to look at with a sense of personal sacrifice?
On the one side of the coin, I feel like we all view our stewardship as being built on personal sacrifice. We see the opportunity costs associated with the money we give or the time that we spend in ministry, and view all of these decisions as a conscious choice that we have to make regarding the use of our gifts. On the other side, however, I can see that some of us were given voices to sing, and spread God's love through song. Some of us were given talents in home repair, to spread God's will by bettering the lives of others. Some of us were given joy and the gift of laughter, to spread God's love by putting a smile on the faces of complete strangers. And all of us were given time, to spread God's will by working to bring about Kingdom in the world. If we are simply using a gift we have been given by the spirit for its intended purpose, is it really "self sacrifice," or is it simply answering our call?
What do you think Shiloh?
Justin Sierschula
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Ok, I am going to attempt to make this sound coherant but I don't promise anything. I understand what you are getting at. At the same time I think all too often that we beat ourselves up for the things that we do that are good things no matter how you look at it. Lets look at prayer for example, someone once said to me I love to hear you pray because it always seems to come from the heart. They also mentioned that they could never do that because they would say it wrong or make a mistake. Well if you've ever listened to my prayers on a Sunday night I certainly am no linguistic prayer afficionado and to be honest I don't care. What I do care about is that I am praying at all, that I am willing to let all my self inflicted fears of not praying " correctly" go in order to free myself in that moment to reach out to God and allow others to include their thoughts along with mine?!(I hope that made sense). I would hat to imagine that we would hesitate to do or say something good until we are absolutely sure we are not doing it for the self. We shouldn't, you shouldn't feel guilty about saying that we/you are sacrificing yourself for doing what we believe God wants us to do, instead I believe we should always celebrate when we do things that make this world a better place to live in. Your doing great things with Stewardship, we, Shiloh are doing great things in service to this community and this world. let us continue and if we feel good about it, personally, selfishly, then I say O.K. After all we are all human and whos to say that God isn't behind us saying " give yourself a pat on the back for your blessed effort".
ReplyDeleteI assure you that your comment was both coherent and insightful, and I thank you for your input. To apply what I was saying to what you were saying, in the thought process that I was going through when I was writing this blog, your prayers would be an example of you using spiritual gifts that you've been given, for instance the ability to coherently vocalize heartfelt praise for God, for the purpose that they had been given to you. Your ignorance of your "self inflicted fears" to allow you to use these gifts in public would be an example, again, in the thought process that I was following while writing this, of you using these gifts to touch the lives of others and to spread God's love without concern for self.
ReplyDeleteI assure you that I was not trying to generate any sort of guilt, or saying that we should not feel good about the things we were doing in the world. Rather, I was just trying to explore another way of looking at the sacrifices that we all make in relation to our stewardship, hopefully as a springboard for discussion as to what sacrifice in stewardship means to others.
Justin
Thanks Justin, once again for making me think and for keeping my thoughts focused on a life of more enlightened stewardship! God bless " son " and have a great day!
ReplyDeleteWe do many things in life that are sacrificial and we don't necessarily realize it. We also do things in life that are intentionally sacrificial (as we have come to understand the meaning of the term) less frequently. Some believe that sacrifice can only be defined as containing pain, i.e. one cannot sacrifice without experiencing some level of pain. I don’t believe that God needs us to feel pain as the exclusive way to experience sacrificial life as a part of God’s will. What if God’s will can be expressed by the movie “What About Bob” in that regard? We do little things that are sacrificial constantly that affects others unless we are totally consumed with self. We take baby steps towards Kingdom in those small sacrifices. We sacrifice for others, loved ones and strangers without a lot of thought mostly in baby steps and from time to time we even take a painful leap. What we do in sacrifice is God’s will whether it’s major or minor, whether it’s painful or not whether it’s by leaps and bounds like those helping in Haiti or by baby steps like slowing down and paying attention to someone else’s needs long enough to hold the door open for them.
ReplyDeleteAs Justin has defined sacrifice as “without concern for self” it can be a big deal or it can be baby steps. Celebrating baby steps makes the major leaps of pain possible.
randy
Maybe we need to first give ourselves to God. Let Him mold us and fill us and guide us into our giving to others and our stewardship will be his will, not ours. martha
ReplyDeleteSo great point Martha. How do we address the issue of intentionality? Or maybe that's Martha's point entirely. Should we have to focus on intentionality if we are filled with God's will?
ReplyDeleterandy
You folks are brilliant! Carl
ReplyDelete