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Why do people give? Why do people do good things for other people? Unfortunately, our motivations are not always clear and good. Unfortunately also, we are not always aware of the impurity of our motives. Why do people give and why do people do good things for other people?
The first motivation, unexpressed but very often unadmitted, is self-interest. We want to give because we want to get something in return. Investment, so to speak. We give something because we know that we will get something even more in return. It can come in business. Sometimes, it can also come in Church, in prayer. We say, “I will spend 30 minutes at Mass every day, and I know that I will receive blessings more than that, anyway.”
Another reason for doing things for other people is duty. We do it out of duty, without any fervor, without any tenderness. We just do it out of duty, as paid people.
Still another reason for doing good things for other people is superiority. This one is very bad because the beneficiary of the goodness ends up feeling so low, so destroyed because the giver wants to feel superior over the other. We can give but we can diminish humanity. We can give and we can say bad words. We can give and we can say nasty things. We can give and we can expect so much utang na loob from those who benefit from our “goodness.”
Why do we give? Some of our bad and impure reasons are unexpressed, sometimes difficult to admit. But today the Lord says to us that we must be generous recklessly. That’s the key word. Many of us can be generous but with generosity that is measured—generosity that makes sure that your cash balance is okay. But it is generosity that is reckless that is the example of Jesus Himself. Who is that British playwright who said, “With reckless generosity, the pauper can live like a prince?” In other words, the key to a happy, contented life is reckless generosity—generosity that throws its cares and concerns to the wind and allows God to provide for us, generosity that doesn’t care about how we could live, generosity that is careless, that is carefree, that is reckless. And we can live like princes because we can live without fear, and we can live in happiness.
WHY DO YOU GIVE?
Lk. 14:12-14
Love Like Jesus
