The Heart of Generosity

I love stories; I have a couple of novels going at any given time. I love stories because they can teach us things that we can't learn just by reading facts and slogans about how to live life. Stories invite us to ponder life as it is in all its harshness, disappointment, loss and glory. I love all kinds of stories--fairy stories, true stories, historical fiction, science fiction, etc. What all good stories have in common is that tension drives the action. Here is a character in an impossible situation, and we are curious as to how the story will resolve--with redemption, failure, or (hopefully) a fairy tale ending. But here is what I know to be true of the stories we love best: they always seem to run along a redemptive arch that is filled with lavish generosity.I know this is true because of my own heart, and also because of what repeatedly goes viral on social media--stories of sacrificial generosity. I don't know how many times I get an email from someone wanting me to watch something on YouTube, and it is either a hunting story--which gets great traction from me and my equally overtyped male friends--or it is  some great redemption story that turns upon the generosity of another.Why is this true? Why do we love these stories? I think I know. At the heart of reality is God--who is the first and most generous--and because we are made in his image, we bear that love. The dark side is that we are sinners, and though we love these stories, we are typically afraid. We lack the faith to be in the story. But what if things were different? What if we were in the story? Can we be? Is it possible for us to become people known from deep and lavish generosity? Come Sunday, and I think you'll see that not only is it possible, but it's what you were made for!Blessings,Jim