I do not believe that when we give to others God always returns the gift to us in equal or greater measure. I do, however, know from experience that when we are certain that God is directing us to give, it is important to be obedient—even when we least want to do so.
In the fall of 2001 my daughter Alexandra needed to take a class to earn the necessary CE credits to have her insurance license renewed. The required class was not currently available in El Paso, but it was available in Lubbock. Since the trip from El Paso to Lubbock entails driving about three hundred miles across long stretches of uninhabited desert, Alexandra asked me if I would go with her so that she would not have to make the drive alone.
The class schedule included one full day and a two-hour wrap-up the following morning. We planned to leave for our return trip to El Paso as soon as the wrap-up ended, so Alexandra and I looked forward to spending our one evening in Lubbock enjoying a mini “vacation.” Our business was new, and we were struggling financially; I had a five-dollar bill in my wallet and nothing else. I had no credit cards and no other money.
Alexandra was also struggling financially, but she was paying for the hotel room (which we shared) and our dinner with her credit card. We went to the coffee shop, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, and settled in for what we believed would be a pleasant evening talking in the nearly deserted restaurant.
Our waitress was in her early twenties and very smiley. Although only one or two other tables were occupied, she gave extremely poor service. Alexandra and I are both very low-maintenance so that was not a real problem for us, but the waitress decided that we were her new best friends. She insisted on standing by our table smiling and complaining about her bosses, her co-workers, and her customers. I was sure that after she had vented sufficiently, she would leave us alone to enjoy our dinner, but, no, that did not happen. She stood at our table talking the entire time that our meal was being prepared. The other customers had left by that time and I hoped that when she served our food she would leave to clear their tables or do something in the kitchen, but, no, that did not happen. She stood smiling and complaining the entire time that we were eating. She did not refill our glasses or do any of the things that a waitperson ordinarily does to make her customers’ meals enjoyable.
When our meal was almost over, I felt the Lord tell me to give her the five dollars as a tip. I was not happy about that. She had given us the worst service I have ever encountered and then monopolized our time by refusing to leave our table. Neither Alexandra nor I had asked her to do anything for us, and we had forced ourselves to be friendly, but surely this was the last straw: God wanted me to give my last five dollars to this young woman.
I wrestled with myself for a few minutes, but then I reached into my purse and took the five dollars from my wallet. When we rose from our table to leave the restaurant, I smiled and handed her the money. I promised myself that I was not going to think about it again.
The next morning I told Alexandra to leave her keys with me. She checked out of the hotel on her way into the meeting, and I picked up our suitcases and headed for her car to put them in the trunk. When I opened the front door of the hotel, I saw something lying on the sidewalk. I stooped to pick it up and discovered that it was a ten-dollar bill.
I have no doubt that if I had kept my five dollars, I would not have found the ten dollars on the sidewalk. Other people were going in and out of the lobby as I passed through the door, and none of them had even noticed the money lying on the sidewalk.
I believe that God put that ten-dollar bill there to bless me, but I also believe that He wanted to teach me a lesson. He is the one who decides who needs our help, and sometimes it is the person who is annoying us the most. Sacrificial giving is easy when we are giving to those we love; it is not so easy when we are giving to someone whom we hope will go away and leave us alone. The thing that we need to remember is this: God never makes a mistake, and when He directs us to do something we need to trust Him. He created everything that exists out of nothing. He is well able to intervene our behalf and turn less into more.
Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her story of teaching her own ten children from the first grade through master's degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.
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