Being Gracious and Generous to One Another
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
For me, graciously caring for another person seems to involve thought, connection with Jesus, and an understanding of God’s compassion.
Thoughtful Care
You may be someone to whom kindness, care, and thoughtfulness come easily, and you may be one who wants to grow in it - and you may be like me and be in both camps! I’ll share the ways that come to mind for how to care for people, and I’d love to hear the ways that you know and practice. All Nations’ Sender’s U training is an excellent resource of how to love people well and I think some or all of these ideas are included in her training!
Ideas:
Acknowledge key days:
o Birthdays
o Wedding anniversaries
o Anniversaries of losing loved ones - and likely the loved one will be in mind for the time preceding that date, as well (perhaps especially 1-3 months in advance of the anniversary) - including miscarriages.
o Surgeries
o Anything the person tells you is meaningful for them
Ask questions
o I loved Randy Catlett’s suggestion of the book Humble Inquiry and to ask questions you don’t already know the answers to!
Celebrate with them!
o Any acknowledgment of something that was a challenge or a big step for them.
Send cards, emails, texts – you name it!
o I personally love the scheduling function in some text and email apps, so I can know that my note will go to the person on the right day regardless of my schedule!
o For people I communicate with via other means, I tend to set alarms on my phone and/or appointments on my calendar to remind me.
Keep design in mind
o I love all of the strengths and gifting tools we use at All Nations, as it helps us get to know ourselves and other people. How God designed us certainly affects how we interact with people! I find that it also affects how we give and receive love, and the 5 Love Languages book especially offers insight. Just because I give and/or receive love one way does not mean that another person finds it as meaningful, so it’s helpful to figure out what actually speaks love to them.
Take note of what they share
o People have mentioned over the years that they feel most loved by my remembering details about their lives and asking them how those things are going. Now, I don’t always remember things! And making notes after a chat is absolutely acceptable if you are so inclined. I find those things are usually easier to remember if they have been on my heart as I have prayed for the person in the time between our interactions.
Connecting with Jesus: Loving Those Who are Hard to Love
While caring for people generally comes easily to me, there are those people who seem hard to love. For me, those are usually the ones who work against me. The ones who are just a hard shell are more like a fun challenge for me to see if I can get them to crack and receive God’s love, but the ones who seem nice and soft but actually stab me in the back are difficult for me to want to care for. There are some forgiveness aspects to that type of interaction, and I highly recommend Fresh Start as a tool in that journey.
Honestly, loving those who have hurt me is what I consider being gracious and generous with people because that is where the tension and my need for growth is greatest. I think that sending notes is also part of loving them well, but that part is fun for me. Meeting Jesus in deep places of the heart to receive His forgiveness for my sin involved and offer it freely to another is much harder for me.
The end of 1 Peter 2 is a passage that has resonated with me in that regard:
“For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” - 1 Pet. 2:19-23
It seems easier to me to just avoid all of the discomfort and ignore anything that happened. But avoiding the pain also means avoiding healing, and, honestly, it means disobedience to God. When I obey, though, I find that Jesus has already suffered and been a sufficient sacrifice. He invites me to follow in His footsteps: He obeyed the Father by going to the cross and putting Death to death, and I can bear my cross, find that Jesus has carried it and gives me His light yoke in return, and allow Him to give abundant life in those painful places where sin led to death. That is when I find His love for me and for the other person, and how He treasures the intimacy with me in exchanging sin and death for life and freedom in those deep places of the heart. Furthermore, I find that the other person needs the same grace I do - one none of us deserve! Then I am free to offer to them what God gives me: the freedom to seek Him and grow in the ways He impresses upon their heart, rather than a requirement to do what I might want them to do right then.
Indeed, being loving, accepting, and supportive seems key to being gracious and generous with others. I feel like AN attracts that type of person, as I have felt extraordinarily supported by many All Nations members! So I speak for myself that I struggle with being judgmental, controlling, wanting a certain outcome soon. Yet that’s not how genuine growth takes place. In order to take those big risks – the ones that really matter and can lead to a more abundant harvest, but might also involve failure along the way – we all need a place where we feel safe. And just as much as I need that safe place, so it is important to be able to offer it to others by letting them be themselves and walk with God on their own journey and at their own pace.
I just watched the Voice of the Martyrs virtual conference, and Dan Baumann’s story of receiving and then giving God’s love comes to mind. In his fourth suicide attempt during imprisonment in Iran, he had a vision of Jesus and realized that God still loved and wanted him. That changed his perspective! Yet it was still a shock to him when he heard God tell him to befriend the guard who beat him daily. What he discovered was God’s love for the guard and he was able to give that love away freely. Now that is the deep work of the Holy Spirit, offering love, freedom, and healing to both believer and unbeliever!
Understanding God’s Compassion
Part of that connection with Jesus allows for gaining His perspective of us and to be the Beloved of the Lord. It is out of understanding God’s compassion toward me that I am able to live as His Beloved and offer love to those around me.
I had a counselor friend challenge me to read this familiar “one another” passage and allow the Holy Spirit to apply it to my own heart in how I regard myself:
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” – Col. 3:12-14
Some of the first things that come to mind for me include: Do I really grasp that because of Jesus, God sees me as holy and beloved? Do I wear a compassionate heart toward myself, or do I just beat myself up for any mistake and forget that Jesus loves sinners (not “perfect” people)?
One of my personal challenges of “one anothering” is having healthy boundaries so that there is time for self-care, as well as pouring out for others. I often feel the weight of caring for people too much, such that I’m striving and not really wearing Jesus’ easy yoke that He offers. Yet the more that I recognize the depth of God’s kindness toward me, the more that flows freely through me without any striving.
I invite you to join me in the journey of knowing God’s love by caring for others thoughtfully and connecting with Jesus. I’d love to hear how He is guiding and growing you in this path, so please don’t hesitate to reach out and continue the discussion!
About the author: Emily has been an advocate and long-time friend of All Nations for a good while. She has served in pastoral support as a volunteer and served All Nations International in a variety of important administrative roles 2020-2023.
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