Linc Ashby, All We Have Is Ours to Share

Linc Ashby.

I have read a lot of Blogs this week, but this post touched me deep inside, and has caused me to rethink some of my giving! Linc is one of the contibutors to Common Grounds Online. Here is the post...

I have a nightly ritual. I grab a Coke from the fridge and put it in the freezer for exactly thirteen minutes. That’s how long it takes to reach perfection – not quite frozen, a tad bit slushy, but not nearly enough to clog the opening, which is an obvious dilemma. The other night I was thoroughly enjoying my Coke when my wife took a huge swig for herself. She didn’t even ask. So I asked her, “What do you think you’re doing?” She sarcastically sounded off, “All we have is ours to share!” Which is what I tell our three year old when she won’t share her toys.

I was hanging out with three of my closest friends a while back. The one topic that occupied most of our attention was generosity, so we sat down, opened our laptops, and compared budgets – a huge risk. We were brutally honest, all the way down to how much we spent on swim lessons. What we made, what we saved, ballpark figures on food, entertainment, clothing, school, everything. And the most challenging, how much money we were giving away.

At one point I got frustrated. “Do we have a goal?” I blurted out, such the pragmatist. That’s when Ted said something that haunts me to this day. “Fifty-fifty!” “Huh?” I asked, like I hadn’t heard him, but, of course, I had. He pressed deeper. “When Jesus said, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ do you think he could have meant fifty-fifty?” I sat there, deer in the headlights. What if the ways we love ourselves are fine – well most of them – so long as we also love our neighbors as much, in the same way, in direct proportion? Here’s sort of what I mean: Continue reading...