Caveat emptor and learning trust

"Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."

We tend to have a caveat emptor approach to most of our economic interactions: buyer beware.  Perhaps the toughest thing to learn as we grow up is who to trust and how much to trust.  We all know you should not trust everyone, especially when money is changing hands.

For some people, wealth is a temptation beyond temptation.  Generosity always comes in the small size and at the last minute.  For some people, counting the cost is an automatic operation and it takes very little for them to deem anything 'too costly.'

I know this.  You know this. Perhaps you even wrestle with yourself in this very place in your spiritual life - this inability to freely give, to share without weighing against self interests.  On really good days you can open your hand and press a gift into the hand of another - sometimes you surprise yourself and it is a $20 instead of a $1.  But on bad days, you cannot see past your own self-interests to compassion for another.  You rarely experience joy in giving.

Keep at it.  It will come.  The great generosity of God's heart which gave to us the gift of Jesus and in him the gift of forgiveness will transform your heart.  Pray that you will see opportunities to share yourself all around you.  Pray that Jesus will intervene when your heart starts cramping up.  Deliberately choose to give more than you have originally planned - more time, more gifts, more money....more anything.

God calls that opening of your heart: love.  In time, it will be the very thing you give the greatest thanks for.