Recently God opened my eyes to a troubling fact.
I was listening to a podcast by Andy Stanley on giving where he stated the more people have, the less people are willing to give back.
People with more money do give bigger amounts because they can afford it but they give a lower percentage of their income. I found this to be alarmingly true after visiting Belize on a missions trip.
I witnessed families and individuals literally living in dirt floor houses with palm leaf thatched roofs and barefoot, offer the others and myself food with a smiling face.
They did not have a grocery store nearby to buy more groceries, nor did they even have the money to buy the groceries. Yet they were more willing to give what little they had to a few strangers than most Americans ever will give.
You see the sad truth is that America has been a blessed nation but not by our own doing.
God blessed America but we slowly have concluded that it was because of all of our hard work that America became the greatest nation on earth.
As we accumulated massive amounts of wealth and luxuries, the idea stuck in our minds that we were responsible for our own prosperity, and as we have gained more and more stuff, we have become less willing to part with that stuff.
Personally, I learned this lesson the hard way.
I was blessed to grow up with a dad who taught me to hunt and took me often.
Spending time with my dad is especially enjoyable when we spend it in God’s beautiful creation.
As I grew I began to chase the numbers I wanted to shoot my limit of waterfowl, I wanted the biggest deer on the wall, and I wanted the most bands on my lanyard.
Spending time in the outdoors became a competition for me, a competition destined for failure.
It became a focus of my life and I quickly concluded that hunting and the outdoors were not as fun as they once were.
The waterfowl season of 2014 came and was passing quickly and as was typical, I wasn’t finding the enjoyment in hunting I once had, even after shooting limits of birds all season long and shooting my first band.
During a goose hunt near the end of the season, it hit me why I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore.
I was chasing the numbers, and numbers couldn’t give me fulfillment because they can never be caught.
After returning home from a good hunt that day, I began thinking about how to make my hunts once again enjoyable.
I had thought about it for a few weeks; when I was approached by a good family friend from church wanting to go duck hunting for the first time.
BINGO.
The light bulb went off!
Long story short I took him and my younger cousin, who does not have the opportunities I have to hunt constantly, for a quick hunt on our small farm pond.
We shot only a few ducks that day yet seeing the smiles on their faces made it one of the best hunts I had the privilege of being a part of that season.
I say all of that to simply say, I was blessed by God but when I hoarded my blessing for my own personal gain and consumption, I found no happiness or fulfillment in that blessing.
However, when I shared that blessing I was blessed beyond what I had been before.
My heart was positioned to receive the blessing this time.
Don’t fall for Satan’s trap of hoarding your blessings. God has blessed us to be a blessing to others that are less fortunate than ourselves.
Satan will tell you the more you have, the better off you will be; therefore our mindset becomes the more we have the more we want.
If you are tired of listening to Satan’s lies about how hoarding your blessing has greater benefit than sharing them, I would be honored if you reached out to me on Instagram @WesleyKLittlefield or commented on this post.