Harder Than Running a Marathon

    I was waiting towards the back of the pack of 40k+ marathoners to approach the starting line to begin the “race”. It was over an hour from the time the first group of runners started before the final group crossed the starting line. Shortly before my group even got to the start, the announcer, being humorous, said, “I have some bad news, you’re probably not going to win.” I chuckled, knowing that the leaders of the race were already nearly half-way through the course.
    But then I thought, “I’m not doing this to win, or even to compete. I’m not even doing this to run. I’m doing this to help kids in Africa get clean water.”
    That evening, while lounging in my family room, nearly immobile from the pain in both legs, I asked a friend who also ran with Team World Vision, “How was your time?”
    He said, “I don’t even know. To tell you the truth, I didn’t do this to make good time. I did this for the fundraising.” I was proud of him.
    But there’s a problem with our efforts to raise money to help people on the other side of the world. Some call it, “Drive-by giving.” I do think God wants us to give towards international projects and needs. But for too many of us, doing so satisfies the voice in our head that tells us to be generous. I don’t think it should.
    I challenge you to take it a lot further.
    God wants you to be generous with your resources, but even more so, he has called you to be generous with your lives. Don’t let your little gifts to charity cause you to forget about the pain, misery, brokenness and purposelessness all around you. God has called us to do more than support a marathon runner for a mile, or even tithe our incomes to the local church. God has called us to invest our lives in the  broken people who live all around us, work with us, are related to us. He wants us to live generous lives for the sake of others in the world around us.
    That’s harder than running a marathon. A lot harder.
    But think what would happen if we really did that. Think of what would happen if Christ-followers everywhere reached out to the coworkers who are struggling with a sick child...reached out to them as in visiting the child at the hospital and offering to take care of things for them while they are distracted by their crisis. Think what would happen if we all engaged the neighbor whose wife is no longer living at the house...and we offered to take him to breakfast or to share with his child care needs.
    Think what would happen if we invested ourselves with generosity when people’s lives are messy. What kind of an impact would we make?
    I’m thrilled with the 1,200+ kids we have provided clean water to in Mali, West Africa. But right now, I’m really concerned with the hundreds of thousands of people who live within driving distance of our church, who are far from God. Let’s live generous lives and invest in them too.