Give Until It Hurts

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Luke 6:38

“Give, God tells us. Give till it hurts. It’s been hurting for a while now. But we’ve never been happier.” These words were uttered by Jason Brown, the former NFL center who was paid $37.5 million when he was signed by the St. Louis Rams. He left all that behind and bought a 1,000 acre farm in North Carolina and has been farming full time since 2013. The amazing thing is he gives everything he grows, except what his family eats, to the poor. Jason’s First Fruits Farm provides the fruit and vegetables that go to food banks and soup kitchens. 

“We’ve donated more than a million pounds of food since we started.” Jason said. “My father sometimes tells me that if we keep giving like this, pretty soon we will be the ones needing help. He’s got a point. But I also recognize that I’m attached to a kingdom with unlimited resources—that I’m loved by a generous God. And so we keep giving. We keep working. We keep doing what God called us to do. I’m working harder now than I ever did playing football. I’m sacrificing more now than I ever did playing football.” 

When asked why he does it, why he left such a lucrative career to work hard in a farm with little financial return, he answers: 

“Here’s the difference between my life then and my life now: When I go to bed, I have a sense of peace and satisfaction. The stress that I felt playing football is gone. And, although it’s been replaced by different stresses, I know that all my problems come with a purpose. A mission. I know that what I’m doing now isn’t just for me. It isn’t even just about all the thousands of people who might otherwise go hungry. It’s for God. I’m doing what God has truly called me to do.”

“For all the work I do, for all the weariness that sinks and settles deep into my bones, I wake up every morning, look out the window, and feel . . . amazed. And I feel God beside me. Above me. Everywhere. Because I am right where He has called me to be.”

Indeed when we give to God’s work, we will receive much more than we have given.