Life in its fullness

This is not what I planned.  I had spent time looking at a completely different topic but at the last minute I felt I was to look at receiving.  This is an area that God has been working on for some time in me, but I’m definitely still on the journey.

I have been quite comfortable with the idea expressed in Acts 20:35 where Luke tells us that Jesus said:

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Not being particularly materialistic and having grown up in a family culture where it was quite natural to give, I have found it easy over the years to give all sorts of things – money, time, space in my house, and things that people need, big and small.  I have found it easy to fall into the role of being the one who helps others in all sorts of ways.  But … God challenged me some time ago on the motivation behind my giving. 

There have been many things God has put his finger on in terms of the motivation behind my giving but in relation to today’s focus, one reason is that it has kept me from all the issues that have come up when I’m in that place of receiving. There was a sense of being in control, of having power, that came from being the one doing the giving. It fed into my sense of independence and pride which is something I have continually had to be aware of.

As someone who is called to leadership, God has shown me that learning to receive is key. I do not want to get to into a mindset that says, ‘I’m sorted, I have no need of anything from anyone’. An arrogance that says, ‘I am the one who gives, and I never needs to receive.’ There is a humbling that has come from this process of learning to receive.

I remember years ago spending many months lying on a mattress on the floor with a bad back and having to ‘allow people’ to help me. I hated this period so much. I hated seeming weak. I hated not being able to do anything for myself. I hated the dependence on other people. God used this period to start a deep work in me about my independence. Looking back recently, I realise that I did not allow it to permanently change some areas of my thinking. I just endured the process until I could ‘get back to normal’. I have been reminded of that fact as we have gone through this pandemic. I do not want the hardships of this season to have been wasted. I want them to create the lasting change in me that God wants to bring about. Hebrews 12:7 exhorts us:

 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 

I want God to be able to discipline me, to train me, as a good Father. Verse 11 reminds us why we would endure hardship. There is goodness to be gleaned from the hardship. I don’t want to miss it.

 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

It seems crazy to be describing a time of receiving as a hardship. The reality is that the physical limitations of that time on my back were a hardship. The pain was intense sometimes but, as I look back, I realise that the process of submitting and learning to receive seemed harder. I was so blessed by family and friends who cared for me, but I struggled with it. I did not want to see such a sacrificial level of giving when I was the recipient. I was happy if it was for someone else. Was that pride? Possibly. But it brought up feelings of unworthiness. It also made me face my attitudes towards others who seemed to be happy to receive without ever giving anything in return. I discovered that I really don’t like attitudes of entitlement. My pride did not want me to be amongst those I had looked down on and so I couldn’t wait to get back on my feet and prove my worth again. It is interesting how much God can reveal in the uncomfortable places in life!

The journey continues as I learn to receive gifts large and small, including money which often makes me feel uncomfortable. One of the things I find interesting is the feeling of needing to pay back. When I give, I have no expectation of anything in return but when I receive it doesn’t feel like that. I want to give something in return; to take it in turns to give so that the scales between me and my donor are balanced. I am relatively happy to receive from someone once but more than once feels difficult. I have discovered I have preferences about who I want to receive from, about who it feels appropriate to receive from. Receiving from someone who I perceive as not having much is very difficult; or from someone I feel I want to honour and bless, so hard.

I have discovered that I like the scriptures that back up the idea that obedience brings blessing because that feeds into my desire to have earned it. I am reminded of how the Galatians slid back into a gospel of works, of legalistic religiosity. That tendency is in me too and it needs rooting out because it permeates so much of my thinking. Yuk! Who knew that I had so many boundaries to my receiving?!

God talked to me about learning to receive from his hand, not the hand of my benefactor. That does not mean that I do not say thank you to the person giving to me but I’m also learning to see it as a blessing from God. Even in my times in his presence, I have been resisting what he wants to pour into me. I had spiritualised it, saying my focus is to minister to him, to worship him not to see what I can get. But why would I come to the one who is my source and not receive? Crazy!

He reminded me that his kingdom is limitless and how my thinking is so limited; bound in unhealthy ways. He described himself to Moses as:

Abounding in love and faithfulness

It seems like he wants me to experience that “abounding”. I have allowed the enemy to rob from the blessings that God has for me because of the enemy’s lies that I have believed, through fear of swinging into entitlement. Often in our shifting of wrong thinking, it is easy to overcorrect and swing in the opposite direction. The Passion Translation of John 10:10 pushes my limited thinking to stretching point with its extravagant language:

A thief has only one thing in mind—he wants to steal, slaughter, and destroy. But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect – life in its fullness until you overflow!

God can choose to bless me any way he likes.  In Exodus 33:19, he says:

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.

Grace is offensive. Grace messes with my desire to earn his love, his blessing. I have a choice about what, and how, to receive but I sense him pulling me so much deeper and I can feel the limitations breaking as I choose not to resist that drawing into his love.

Ultimately, the more I am able to receive, the more able I will be to pour out and the less boundaries there will be to my love for others. I know it is out of context but I’m reminded of Matthew 10:8

Freely you have received; freely give.

So, I’ll continue to learn to freely receive. Not just in order to freely give, although giving that is freer from limitations will flow out of it, but because I am a beloved child of God and he wants to bless me.