Good Gifts - Part III

The meal eaten, dishes emptied, and stomachs filled, we reclined about the dining room table.  It was time.  Time to present them with another opportunity to give. 

We strive to offer the children with opportunities to give to others in many different ways.  This season, we've already shipped off shoe boxes and given locally to various organizations.  However, those were all family giving opportunities.  We gave as a family.  This time, we wanted to offer them something they could do on their own.  Their own gift to Him on His birthday. 

We began with a story.  We told them about David and Ornan.

Specifically, we tell of the time David approaches Ornan and asks for his threshing floor.  Ornan offers it and more free of cost to David, but David refuses.  David refuses Ornan's offer.  Instead, "King David said to Ornan, 'No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing." I Chronicles 21:24

We discussed what it means to give something.  Sometimes we give and it is easy.  Sometimes we give and it is a sacrifice.  This is when we give up something of our own to give to another.  These gifts cost us something.  Our gifts to the Lord, should cost us something.  Is it an offering, a sacrifice, if it is only an extra or something we can do without?  

It was then that we presented them a seasonal opportunity to give of their own accord individually.  We explained that this year, we wanted them to have an opportunity to choose if they give, what they give, how much they give, and where they give.  It is their gift. To Him.  If they choose to give or not, to sacrifice what is theirs for another, it was up to them.  All the decisions were theirs to make.  We left it at that without expectations, and await their choice.

And, isn't that in a way, how God leaves it with us...opportunities to give abound.  We can give to others and to Him.  We can choose to give of our extras, giving the easy way.  Or, we can choose the hard way, giving sacrificially, and give to the Lord an offering, a sacrifice that costs us something.

Oh, may my heart choose to always give sacrificially to Him who gave me all!
~ Dorie



Related Posts: Good Gifts and Good Gifts - Part II
Linked to Word Filled Wednesday