It’s been said true giving is a sacrifice, it should be hard, something you don’t want to do… give something you don’t want to… or aren’t really able to give….to prove you are a sacrificial giver.

Yet — giving is really a heart thing!

You can’t make someone love another person. You can’t make yourself love someone you don’t.

You can’t make yourself want to want to give.

If we give something and we don’t really want to is it a good thing? Is it an acceptable ‘sacrifice’? Does it make it worthy and acceptable because we gave against our will?

I think God is more interested in our heart than he is in our gift—to him or anybody else!

It’s a pliability of our heart where God will give us a thought to do something for someone, send a care package to a friend, bake a dish for a neighbor, buy the meal for the car behind you at McDonalds….and you have almost an ecstatic feeling to do it.

That’s the cheerful heart I’m talking about.

That removes us from the ‘works’ category… doing it ‘because I have to’, or ‘it’s my duty’ … a drudgery type ‘giving’.

This cheerful heart and willing-giving will come as we change how we see the world, other people, even ourselves.

Oh God, help me see the good instead of the other…