Written by Special Guest Contributor, Jason Nelson | November 10, 2022
I’ve had the blessing of witnessing many generosity miracles in my life and the lives of others. One such miracle is when my wife Jodi and I were in the San Francisco Bay Area during our 10th wedding anniversary. I wish I could say we were there because of our anniversary, but that wasn’t the case. We were there for a church conference. As a young family, pretty much broke on a pastor salary and single income, we decided to make the most of being there by adding a day to celebrate our marriage milestone.
Knowing this, the Senior Pastor of our church was personally generous with us by blessing us with five crisp $100 bills before our trip, which were tucked away in one of those bank envelopes that fits cash like a glove. The last night of the church conference before our celebration day, there was a special giving time during a worship night in which gifts were being collected to fund the development of worship music across the globe in the native languages of different cultures. God impressed deeply on my heart to give to this cause. In obedience and yet discouraged because I was holding tightly to the cash for our own benefit, I walked to the front of the auditorium and gave a $100 bill.
So, we were down to $400 for our anniversary day. Or so I thought. You see, the next day while at a Target store buying supplies for our extended stay, I literally gasped at the checkout. In pulling out some cash from the envelope, I noticed there were still five $100 bills. It hit me; God miraculously multiplied our money! And I can say as someone with a college finance degree and the son of a banker mom who spent 46 years in the industry, I know how to count money. All of it was still there.
This was a powerful experience in the generosity of God. And while it shows how God can do anything he wants with his created things, even cash, there’s a deeper lesson that grabbed a hold of my heart. It’s that God works his generosity through open hands. My hands weren’t completely open in the worship service as I was gripping onto my cash, but they were open just enough to let go of something God wanted to use for a special cause on his heart. And I have to say, with or without the miracle, I was better off for giving the $100.
But God decided to bless me and my wife as well. He blessed us with his open hands. It says this about God in Psalm 145:16, “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” God is generous to us with his open hand. Playing that out, it means that generosity best flows through us with open hands. From the open hand of the One, through the open hand of another, the power of God’s generosity is made manifest in the world.
What matters to you so much right now that you’re holding onto it tightly? The best thing you can do is loosen your grip to the point of open hands, and let God handle it. You might just discover that he’s got something generous in mind for you and for others.
Photo Credit: Jeremy Yap
Bio:
Jason Nelson is Co-Executive Director/Pastor of Dynamis Ministries. He also pastors in the local church as the Pastor of the Wheaton Campus of Willow Creek Community Church. Originally from small town Iowa, his wife Jodi and their children Zeb, Aliza and Jozef were sent by God to greater Chicago 8 years ago to “share the light of Jesus.” They have been on a wild faith adventure ever since.
