What if You Gave Anonymously

What if you gave $10 to that guy that smiles outside the Starbucks? 

What if you gave $100 tip to the waitress at the diner?  

What if you gave $1000 to your church in cash in an envelope?  

What if you gave all of your giving in cash with no acknowledgement, with no recognition, with no tax benefit, with no appreciation?  

What if you gave more than you can afford?  

What if you did all of your shopping at locally owned and operated stores instead of big boxes knowing that it would cost more?  What if you considered that to be part of your giving campaign?  

What if you donated brand new clothing to the kids in Haiti instead of used clothing?    

What if you hugged that smelly person at church every Sunday?  

What if the next time that homeless person on the street asked you for money you gave him a hug?  And a $20 bill?  

What if you got 20 $5 bills and committed to giving every one of them away this week?  

What if you doubled your tips for the next month?  

What would happen?  I'm going to try some of these and I'll let you know how it goes.  Let me know what happens if you try any of these and share some of your own "what ifs".  

Spoiler Alert

I hate to ruin the surprise, but in the end you die, you go to heaven and live for eternity with Jesus.  Merry Christmas, you won the lottery.  Now, you might say to yourself, "No I won't.  I'm not a Christian, and I don't believe all that stuff."  In which case, you are right, but that's another matter.  I'm talking to the Christians.  

Brothers and sisters we know how the story ends.  But do we appreciate how much power that gives us?  What if I knew I wouldn't break my leg while skiing?  Would I ski differently?  Heck yeah, I would ski off every jump and berm and cliff I saw in the mountains.  And if I knew I wouldn't skid out of control and possibly hurt or kill someone, I'd drive like a maniac too, I would put the pedal down and rip around every corner on my way home from work.  

Seriously.  We know how it ends.  If I quit my job, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  If I get home too late from work, I'll live with Jesus for eternity.  If I offend someone, or shrink in fear of offending someone, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  If I push the envelope or stay in a box.  If I go to church or party all night.  If I vote left or right, or give or keep or go or stay, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  That is the inevitable answer.  It's how it ends.  There's not another ending.  

So, what am I waiting for?  What am I afraid of?  Why don't I do the thing I want to do?  Amazingly, I live in a prison of fear of what might happen, even though, no matter what happens between here and there, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  So, this year, I am going to push the envelope, take the leap, and run off the edge.  

If you don't leap, you can't fly.  

Walking in the Dark

When I first moved to Bainbridge Island, back in 1998, I didn't realize how dark it could get living in the woods.  I had grown up living in the suburbs of Seattle and had never lived anywhere but suburbs or in town, where there are few trees and/or plenty of street lights.  Our first rental house on Bainbridge was at the far northern tip of the island, and to get to the house we had to go down a long rabbit warren of driveways through a thick forest.  Houses were sparse and trees were many and tall.  I should have taken a hint by the flashlights that every other bus rider was holding when they got off the bus at night, but I was young and clueless.  "I don't need a flashlight..."

So, when the bus dropped me off and drove away I was a little surprised to discover just how dark dark can be.  At first the headlights reflected off the trees and provided some light.  But as the bus rounded the corner a ways off behind me, it went to pitch black.  I've been in a super dark place before, and I just keep trying to open my eyes further.  It's as if I don't believe they're open because nothing is registering.  The weird thing was that I've never been in a place so dark outside.  Usually, there's light bouncing off the clouds, or the moon is providing some light.  But not in these trees.  

I put my hand out in front of me and could not see it.  So, I was walking slowly down the driveway that I knew was there, but I was wandering off course into the muddy ditch on the side.  It was so dark that I literally got down and touched the edge of the driveway with my hand to feel my way down the driveway.  Eventually I got to the part of the driveway where I needed to leave the pavement and go down a gravel driveway.  There was no more pavement to guide me and I didn't want to go into the ditch.  At that point, I looked up that I discovered a path to follow.  Where the driveway cut through the forest, there was a path of stars above, and if I just kept looking up, I could stay in the middle of that path and walk straight down the driveway.  Eventually, I got down closer to the house and a light from the house guided my path.  

Later I was thinking about that experience as a metaphor for my life.  I struggle to see where I'm going and I insist on finding a way to do it myself.  And a lot of the time that works well enough.  But is that any way to live...well enough.  I want to live a life that is full and rich and meaningful, and the path to that life is there all along.  I need only look up.    

"I am the way, the truth and the life."  - Jesus, John 14:6

What's your Faith Quotient?

You hear a lot of talk about IQ (Intelligence Quotient), and since it's so clearly measured (at least according to some) it's fun to figure out who has the biggest score and then be jealous of them or assume that their IQ explains their success.  In recent decades there's been a lot of emphasis on EIQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) and recognizing that it's as important and possibly more important to attaining "success".  Now I put quotes around success because most of the time in business or personal fulfillment literature, success is closely correlated to money.  But you and I both know how untrue that is.  Of course, now I have to admit that while I know in my head that money won't make me happy, I still want more of it, and still measure success in terms of money constantly.  OK, but what is success?  What if success were tied to something more like satisfaction with life?  Or maybe even better would be satisfaction multiplied by positive impact?  What if I had very little mullah, but felt very satiated AND had a significant impact on the world around me?  For instance, what if I were a kindergarten teacher at a private school that couldn't afford to pay me well because the state didn't support independent educational options?  I might impact hundreds of kids over the course of my life and each of them in a deeply powerful and personal way, but I wouldn't likely make much money or find myself on the front of any magazine's 40 under 40 list.    

So, what about FQ?  I know, it looks a little bit like a four letter word, but it stands for Faith Quotient.  How successful could you be if you had only average IQ and average EQ but high FQ?  When I think of high FQ, I think of people like David Wilkerson.  I don't know how much of the other two he had, but he had heaps of grace mixed with mounds of faith and he leveraged them both to awesome effect.  All three of these quotients are gifts from God and to him who has been given much, much is expected.  Whether you're smart, or good with people, or have deep pockets of faith, you have what you have to bring glory to God.  And when you use your gifts to bless the world around you, you bring glory to your maker.  We have both the duty and the joy of taking whatever quotients we've been given to impact the world and that is my definition of "success".  

"Until now you've not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive and your joy will be made complete." - John 16:24

So, how about you?  What's your quotient?  Which one is your strength?  Or do you have an even different quotient?  

PS.  I made up Faith Quotient (FQ), but of course I wasn't the first to do so.  Here's an interesting article from 1955 by a game show host on the topic:  http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1955feb-00129