There seems to be a trend these days concerning the need to be generous. I do hope it is more than a trend. However, it seems to create a greater schism at times between the haves and have nots, between the rich and the poor. I have heard it said that God’s heart is toward the poor and if you don’t help them you are less than generous. Motivation to help the poor that is driven by guilt usually only widens the gap. At the same time riches are seen as a blessing and the result of God’s favor on a person. I admit I can be a bit confused. Is God’s bias toward the poor or toward the rich? Or is he biased at all?

It seems the heart of every person, rich or poor, wants to merge with something of meaning, purpose, and beauty. Our experience often contradicts this desire and the experience of so many is one of brokenness and heartache, poor, more than blessing, rich. As I volunteer at our local Rescue Mission, the men and women residents seem to have more brokenness than blessing, more poverty than riches, more hurt than favor. I admit I struggle with their heartache and their lack of so called blessing. How does generosity work for them? Where is the bias?

As I have wrestled with this I realized that God’s bias is not toward the rich or the poor but toward generosity itself. The bias is toward the relational opportunity for each one of us to engage in the beauty of participating in generosity. Generosity allows us to merge with the beauty, purpose and meaning our hearts cry out for. We get to identify with the heart of generosity when we make ourselves poor by enriching others. We also get to experience being rich when we give to those in need. It gives meaning, purpose and beauty to our lives.

Generosity helps us experience the God who made himself poor that we might be enriched so that we, in our enrichment, can be generous to others who are poor. Truly it is more blessed to give that to receive because we get to experience the fullness of the generous transaction between rich and poor and so doing get to experience a full expression of the God who is biased. He is biased towards being generous to rich and poor because after all, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son for everyone, rich and poor alike. In generosity we get to experience the love and fullness of God.

Be biased! Be Generous today!