Serving Generously

Last month, as I sat at the front of the church basement as my parish held the annual meeting, I hoped that someone else would volunteer to be a new nominee for treasurer.  Not to my surprise, no one jumped up to volunteer or to nominate anyone else for the position.  Instead, I was voted in for another two years.  No one asked if I wanted to continue or even gave me the option; the vote just happened so quickly.  I don’t mind doing it, but I just didn’t really want to.  Was it selfish to have these thoughts?  Was not wanting to serve another term saying “no” to God?  These are questions I’ve reflected on over the last several weeks.  When we are involved in our parish, we are saying “yes” to God.  And sometimes, we may not really want to do something we are asked to do.  How do we remain generous with our gifts and time while also keeping in mind that we cannot do everything?

Serving on your parish’s finance/parish council, taking part in other parish committees, volunteering at church events, teaching religion, being involved with retreats, just to name a few things, are all ways we can be involved in our parishes.  All of these areas are opportunities to serve God.  But we cannot do it all. 

God calls us to be generous and giving and to share our time, talent, and treasure.  We are asked to make sacrifices to serve and to give of ourselves.  But how do we discern the line between being generous and involved and saying “yes”, and doing too much that it isn’t helping our relationship with God?  How do we discern how much to give and serve but also set boundaries without being selfish with our time?

Imagine that you are at a potluck with tons of options.  There is so much food available, you want to try it all.  You have a plate in front of you.  You start adding food to the plate.  At first, it is manageable.  Everything is side by side on the plate, only taking up small spaces.  Pretty soon, you start adding more and more.  You start piling it on.  As you stack everything up, the plate is no longer visible.  There is just a mountain of food and it is too much.  This is what we can so often do in our lives.  Our parishes, communities, and other organizations we may be a part of have so many options and opportunities to be involved.  Maybe we want to try it all or maybe we are asked to volunteer for many different areas.  Maybe one week, we have three different meetings, two events we are volunteering at, countless projects we are working on, and more.  What are meant to be good things that allow us to serve and that may nourish our faith can quickly become tasks to get done simply for the sake of accomplishing them.  As we add all of these things to our plate, piling them higher and higher, God gets pushed to the bottom, no longer visible.  We lose sight of our foundation.
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God is the foundation in our lives and all that we do.  We must be generous with our time.  This often means making sacrifices to serve and give.  We must “give without counting the cost.”  Whether we are helping with the things we really enjoy or the things we may not really want to do as much, we need to remember why we are doing it and Who we are doing it for.  If we lose sight of God in all of the meetings and events, nothing that we are doing matters.  My prayer for today is that we would all have the ability to discern how to give generously, while keeping God and our relationship with Him at the forefront.