Paying Forward

"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."  Matthew 5:7

The concept of "paying forward" seems to becoming more and more popular lately.  As best as I can understand, it is the idea of someone doing a good deed to you which  you then "pay forward" by doing a good deed for someone else.  I've read examples of it such as someone paying a toll for the person behind them at the toll booth.  Another of  buying someone behind you a meal when in line at a fast food restaurant.  Perhaps the most touching was seen recently in a video that went viral of a little boy finding a twenty dollar bill in a restaurant parking lot and giving it to a soldier inside with a note about his soldier father who died when he was an infant and "paying forward" by giving the man the bill.   In many ways this is a cool way of showing love for others, but it certainly shouldn't be the main reason why we give.

I've been thinking a great deal about giving lately as I've been experiencing a great deal of it.  With my daughter's wedding fast approaching, she and I have had several recent discussions about how  many have blessed us over the last few years and continue to do so.    Many things in her wedding are gifts from someone.   Because of scholarships her last two years of college were paid for.    When my husband was dying from his cancer, friends and family gave and gave.   Since then, and all through my cancer treatments, friends rallied around providing in more ways than I could have dreamed of.   I don't think most of this giving had anything to do with what these people had been given, but was simply out of love and care.

While I like the concept of paying forward, for the Christian I think it is more giving back or "paying forward" just a bit of what God has given to us.  We take for granted so many of the blessings He gives us each and every day.  Because of that, we tend to not give back to others out of the showers of blessings He gives to us.  My prayer is that I will be more aware of where and how I need to give to others, remembering, not primarily what others have given me, but mostly that all I have is given to me to use for His glory.  John Calvin in the "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life," says You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.