Written by Dynamis Ministries | February 2, 2023
Remember going to the playground as a child and playing on the seesaw? Or maybe you called it a teeter-totter. Either way, this piece of playground equipment was a child favorite! What made it so much fun was that as one child went up in the air, the other came down. And vice versa. It’s fun to go up and down, just look at any amusement park today. But one easily overlooked draw to the seesaw was the inverse relationship it created. One person went one way, causing the other person to go the other. There’s an inverse relationship in generosity that’s worth paying attention to. Jesus is the one who taught it, so check out some highlights from his talk:
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear…25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?… 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well…33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:22, 25-26, 31, 33-34)
Worry is very damaging to us, diminishing our joy and causing us to get off mission with God. We live in a worry culture today, and it’s getting worse by the day. We’re all hindered by worry in one way or another. Some of us have chronic worry, and others of us have situational worry. In either case, worry sucks the life right out of us. This is a real issue that we all face. Maybe there are things in your life that you are worrying about right now.
Jesus knew we would have a problem with worry, and that’s why he calls it out in scripture. But Jesus also offers us a solution to our worry. And that’s where generosity comes in. It’s no coincidence that Jesus says “do not worry” in a teaching in which he also tells us to be generous by giving to the poor and seeking the kingdom of God. That’s because worry and generosity are connected by an inverse relationship, just like a seesaw:
The more we worry, the less generous we will be.
The more generous we are, the less we will worry.
Jesus revealed this over 2,000 years ago, but recent studies in science have even supported this idea. A University of Pittsburgh study from 2019 discovered that generosity creates a warm glow in the brain and reduces activity in the amygdala – the part of the brain that regulates worry, anxiety and stress. This led to the conclusion that “a side effect of generosity is less worry, anxiety and stress.”
There are a lot of human, societal and biblical reasons to be generous. If for no other reason than to reduce the sting of worry in your life, consider the ways you can be more generous. Jesus knew that if we are more generous and focus on the kingdom of heaven by giving our time, gifts and resources away, that we would have less worry and more life to the fullest. Jesus wants us to experience that life, and he gives us an invitation to do it. Let’s accept this invitation by being more generous. In doing so we’ll also be giving up some of our worry too!
