When Receiving Becoms a Gift

it is better to give than to receive; but is even better when you give and it is well received”
That happened to me at Homestead United Methodist Church, and you may wonder why Miguel is talking about an specific church if most of the time he just talk about God. Well I believe God place people, places, moments in our way for us to be able to learn something. Sometimes we learn to be patient, other times to be joyful, may be we learn about good values or the power of generosity, or just simple as becoming good friends so we can have each other in difficult times. But what I learned from this place was far beyond my understanding of love and friendship. I gave a teaching two months ago because my friend Jeff Streszoff who is the pastor invited me to teach to both of his churches,not because he likes the way I teach, but because he was going on vacation and he needed someone to cover up for him (just a little joke for him).

I was nervous because it was a while since I taught in another church as a guest speaker. What if they do not like my teaching? Well at least, I say to myself, if they do not like what I teach they won’t see me again, and Jeff will be in charge to clean up my mess. To be honest I did not prepare a laborious sermon of three points and great tips on how to be a better person. Not at all!..my teaching for that Sunday was done while sitting in a local coffee shop and writing in a holly napkin. (oh with coffee stains and probably cheesecake on it). Holly napkins (named after my aunt Holly, not because of their status, just kidding) are this little piece of papers where great teachings, books, projects and organizations are born. That teaching was not from a Theological research but from my heart. It was a teaching about my own life. From this napkin not only a Sunday teaching was born, but also the title of my book: The Way of Simplicity. I did not prepared hours putting together this, I wrote a couple of scriptures and some ideas and put the napkin in my pocket. The rest of the week I was thinking about it. So when the day came I decided to go as real as possible because I was talking about my own journey into simplicity, so grabbed my jeans, my chaco sandals(good and trendy sandals.( Hey! I am a cool pastor here) and my Mexican guayabera (style of shirt from the gulf of Mexico) and departed to my destination. Oh and I grabbed my napkin.

Let me tell you, I taught with passion and I did a couple of things that I will never do in my own church, but if they did not like it, hey Jeff!!! please clean my mess!!!but what I learn from this Sunday is that is better when you give and it is well received. What I have to give to these people was my honest, sincere, and real heart, they received it and I was blown away from their response. From that experience of giving without expecting anything in return, I became good friend of some members of the church. They offered me their friendship, their home, their food and their unconditional love. They loved me without questioning, they care about me not as a friend of his pastor, or just because I was also a pastor, they cared for me as a friend, as a fellow human being. Their friendship and words they take time to write on facebook have helped me during these difficult moments in my life, and guess what? I received all of that and now I consider them my adopted American family!!!

When we can received what has been given, receiving becomes a gift and a door of opportunities that opens for us and everybody else. Gifts are meant to bless, to bring a good time, or just a nice laugh. When we learn to receive, we are learning to welcome the generous heart of others. Lets start learning not only to give but to receive.

The Nature of Receiving

I was always told that God loves those who give abundantly and that is better to give than to receive; but I was never taught about the action of receiving. To receive is to get something that has given to us. It is welcoming something that, usually someone else, offers to us. I have found out that in our human nature we are more willing to give, than to receive.

When we give, we become generous; but if we do not like to give we become selfish. In the same way when we receive, we are grateful; but if we do not like to receive we become prideful. Dealing with pride I will say is harder than dealing with selfishness, because selfishness deals with ourselves as individuals, but pride is dealing with our reactions when someone else interacts with us.

For me is usually easier to give because in a way I feel that I am doing something good for someone else, giving becomes a very important part of my daily life because it feeds to the ongoing self-acceptance of my soul; it makes me feel that I am important for somebody else and in a way I am helping that person to become a better human being. The problem is that most of the time when we talk about giving, we think is about some kind of financial remuneration; but giving goes beyond just money; we can give our gifts, life, words, and time to others. We could give a word of encouragement, we could give a shoulder for others to cry, we could enjoy a good cup of coffee and give out listening skills for someone who needs to pour out his or her life to us, we could give a helping hand, a trusting heart or just a smile. I have always said that in order to have a good friend we need to invest in time, money and effort. To give helps our self-esteem grow, and that is why God says that He loves the one who gives generously; I think it means that the more you give the more you will be fulfilled, the more you pour out what you have to others, the more you will make space for your life to receive. Because when we give, we will receive. Nature always comes back to itself; you give, you receive.

But most of the time we close that space that giving has freed in ourselves and we do not let anything to come in. This is when we become prideful because we do not feel the need to receive, not worthy of the the generous heart of others. Imagine having a glass that has been sealed in the top of it, every time we pour out water into the glass the water will go everywhere except inside of it. So we can spent hours and many pitchers trying to fill that glass but if the seal is not broken, nothing will come in. That seal is called pride and pride means just knowing we have all we need and we do not need anything more. Pride means we know it all, and nobody can teach us anything else, pride means believing we are better than those ,we think, are not worth of our values. Lamentably in the world there are more prideful people than generous. Receiving is when are able to take that seal from our lives and create a free space for us to be able to receive from others; but we can not make that free space unless we give out from within us. It is the very simple rule of cause and effect. The cause is the giving, the effect is the receiving or vice versa.

So when God says, is better to give than to receive, he/she is not denying the beauty of receiving, but God is teaching us that in order to receive we need to give. This is the nature of receiving, simple as that.

What are you? An open glass or a sealed one!