This is How I Pause: I connect with God through Giving
Johan and Ronel will be married for thirty years this coming September. Johan loves cooking as well as figures (rand and cent). Interestingly their two boys, married to two sisters, have each pursued one of these interests. One has the top restaurant in Port Elizabeth, Muse and the other is qualified in finance. Johan and Ronel serve with Ethnos Movement International in George, South Africa, where they anchor a coffee shop for the ministry. Please drop in for a visit at The Table, 47 Market Street and meet this humble power couple! This week Johan is talking to us about giving.
This is how I pause:
I connect with God through giving!
We live in a world characterized by busyness. We get up early in the morning and we go and sleep late at night. The early and the late are filled with so many “things”, things too much to mention. The “things” are defined by who you are, where you are, and what drives you. We hear about burnout, we hear about depression, we hear about suicide, we see poverty, we experience the sadness in our world, we see fear all around us, and unfortunately the list is infinite.
We sometimes need to just pause, breathe, and …. Let me explain the importance of being able to pause.
The difference between a speaker and a well-trained speaker is the use of gap fillers, such as hmm, uh, you know, and many others. Well-trained speakers rather use well-timed pauses. A pause is an intentional moment of silence that will give the hearer time to think and reflect on what was said. It is not in our nature to pause, because our thoughts tend to run away with us. We need to fight for that pause, but a pause has well-timed power.
It teaches the speaker patience, helps thoughts to be ordered and words to be calculated. It helps the hearer process and it allows time for clarity and conviction.
To pause is not something new, but it is biblical. Let us think about the creation – after each creation day, God intentionally paused and said, “It is good”. When He created man, He paused and said, “It is very good”.
The Psalms are full of pauses and it is represented by the word “Selah”. The writer is intentionally guiding the reader to stop reading and ponder; allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what He wants us to understand about the previous text.
As we ponder about the chaos in our world, we might just need to pause and realize that the only way of putting order back into our lives is through the cross of Jesus. God gave and sacrificed the Lamb, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to the world not to condemn the chaos of the world but to give eternal life.
This however is what our God did for us, but humankind is so accurately described in Otto Koning’s Pineapple Story as being long-nosed or stingy. We are long-nosed with our time, our emotions, our finances, our possessions and everything else. This is just the opposite of the characteristics of God because He wants to give abundantly till our cup runs over. He will provide far more than what we need.
James 1:17 tells us that God owns everything because He is the Creator, Maker, and Giver of all things – so when we give, we are merely giving back a portion of what belongs to God anyway.
I am so fortunate that I do not have to rely on myself when it comes to giving. I am grateful for the Holy Spirit that leads and guides me. The Holy Spirit will sometimes just stop me in my tracks and move my focus to someone who needs a smile, a hallo, a few minutes of my time, even if I think I do not have any, a friendly conversation, a prayer, or maybe money.
It is so important to just pause, breathe and be obedient. It might be difficult to focus on someone else, instead of myself, but that is what God wants us to do. I have to think about Jesus and the example He has set. He was patient, caring, loving, He was the ultimate Giver and even the least was important to Him.
It is so easy to ignore the car guard, it is so easy to hide from someone you do not feel like talking to, it is so easy to listen to someone and keep looking at your watch and it is so easy to focus just on yourself.
I later in my life realized that God will bless me to be a blessing to others. He gave me talents and opportunities to use for His glory. This can only happen when I take the “I” out of the equation. Only now can I please and glorify God. The first step is to give me to God because He already gave His Son to me. I realized that my giving is a measure of my love for God.
When I pause and get stopped in my tracks, I need to be intentional, intentional to listen to the Holy Spirit, and intentional to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. I must realize that it is not about me, but all about Him. Therefor my giving must be joyful and it is also an indication of my faith and trust in the Lord.
When I give it cost me nothing, because all I have and who I am is a gift from God, but my salvation cost Him something, it cost Him the life of His Son.
“Selah”
There are many gifts that we receive from God, but it is now time to pause and think about what you receive from God that can be used to bless others. This can include a wide variety of gifts such as time, empathy, an ear to listen, exhortation, prayer, teaching, finances, or whatever the Holy Spirit reveals to you.
