I would argue that generous giving makes you happier because it connects you to others in a meaningful way. Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest have long observed this connection, which is evident in their festive ceremony known as a potlach. The main purpose of a potlach is to give away wealth to others. In contrast to modern, Western culture, family status in these indigenous cultures is determined now by how much you own but by how much you give away. Remember the widow of the Gospels who gave her last penny to the temple treasury? Jesus honors her by saying,
"Truly I tell you ... this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts our of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on" (Luke 21:3-4).
Because of her generosity, her status in God's kingdom is great.
Another time Jesus instructed the crowds, saying, "Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness" (Luke 11:34). Behind the Greek text lies a Jewish idiom, which in Hebrew is ayin tovah, which literally means "having a good eye." Jesus was not talking about 20/20 vision or some kind of mental clarity but about being able to see the needs of others so that you could supply them. The opposite, ayin ra'ah, can be translated as "having an evil eye." People with an evil eye have blinded themselves to the needs of others, becoming grasping and stingy. According to Jesus, generosity is linked to light while miserliness brings on darkness.1
Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel observed that,
"Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem--how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent."2
Heschel goes on to say that when ancient peoples wanted to emphasize something in their literature, they didn't employ italics or underlining. Instead they repeated it. Of the Ten Commandments, he points out, "only one is proclaimed twice, the last one: 'Thou shalt not covet.... Thou shalt not covet.'"3 To have less and to want less can be a path to freedom.
This principle holds true whether it applies to people, possessions, or food. Commenting on how good she felt after fasting from sugar for 18 months, popular speaker and writer Lysa TerKeurst made an insightful comment: "Nothing tastes as good as peace feels."4 When it comes to controlling our desires and bringing them under the direction of God's Spirit, we can all agree. Nothing tastes as good as peace feels.
- David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (Baltimore: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1992), 32.
- Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straws and Giroux, 1951, 1979), xiii.
- Ibid, 90.
- Lysa TerKeurst, "Nothing Tastes as Good as Peace Feels," posted on https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2011/02/07/nothing-tastes-as-good-as-peace-feels-2 (accessed November 30, 2020).
