In Times of Need: Learning to Receive

“How’s your list coming? You are keeping one, aren’t you?”

A good friend had asked me to keep a running list of things that needed fixing around my house and yard.  She wanted to come out with a group one Saturday and tackle all the things on the list. It would have been a huge help and was a super practical offer.

But I was stuck.  I wasn’t opposed to making the list and there were certainly things that needed fixing around the house.  Take the fence – we needed to put up some more sections to completely enclose the backyard and pool for county regulations. But I had teen boys and shouldn’t we be able to do that?

Other jobs just seemed too large to ask anyone to help with. Every time I thought of a need, I talked myself out of putting it on the list because it was either too big or too small for outside help. And so the list never got made.

But the problem wasn’t really a lack of just-right needs. It was me. I was struggling with learning to receive this gift well.

Before, I had always been the one to bring the casserole, to send the encouraging note or lend the helping hand.  Now we were on the receiving end of so much. As grateful as I was for all of the help and as tremendously helpful as it was, learning to receive stretched me and revealed parts of my heart that needed chiseling away.

When people loved us and generously did for us or gave to us, I would bump up against a huge P lodged in my heart. Pride.

Learning to receive meant I needed to strip away the Facebook mirage and be transparent. Yes, actually, our fence isn’t finished, my bathrooms aren’t clean, I could use help with dinner. And in that vulnerability, I needed to accept with grace the love that was being tangibly offered.

Isn’t that really what giving and receiving is? It’s a transaction of love. At least two are involved – the one generously showing love through a mailed card, a hot meal, a mowed lawn and the one graciously receiving love through vulnerability and an open heart.

We need both parties to the transaction. And we aren’t ever just one or the other.  God didn’t create some as givers and others as receivers. We move back and forth from one to the other. In any given day, I might lend a listening ear and mom wisdom to one friend while getting help from another who’s shuffling my child home from practice.

It often feels easier to be a generous giver. But we also need to learn to receive graciously.

1. Receiving helps Create Community

Community is not living next door to each other or walking through the same hallways on Sunday. Community happens when people love each other, share together, give and receive from each other.

We weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Deep bonds aren’t formed just because we share ideas but because we do life together.  We can’t pull away when we see a need or when we have a need. It’s the giving, sharing, receiving, seeing need, meeting need, accepting help over and over and over that weaves people into a flourishing community.

2. Receiving Teaches Empathy

A few months after Dan died, my oldest called with a quandary. Dear friends had offered to buy his college books for the semester.

“Should I let them do this, Mom?”

Ben knew it was kind and generous but he was conflicted. I understood because I’d been navigating that same conflict.

“Ben, they want to because they love you,” I said. “I want you to think about this: you’re headed to medical school. You’ll be at a place one day where you’ll be the one giving medical care on a mission trip or maybe in your own practice.  You need to understand that patient and what it feels like to receive so that you can give well.”

3. Receiving Allows Answered Prayer

God promises to meet our need and He can certainly do that any way He wants. But He usually uses people. We are His body, His hands and feet. God intends us to meet each other’s need. That was a central part of both the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament.

I can’t ask God to meet a need and then let pride hinder the way God meets it.  Checking off repairs on our list would have been very helpful. It would have answered some of my prayers, lifted my spirits, encouraged my heart. When I let pride keep me from making the list, I hamstrung some of the very provision I’d been praying for.

4. Receiving Completes Others’ Obedience

One day after Dan died, I opened my mailbox to a check from another widow. She was an older woman in my church who was disabled and helping to raise her grandson. I was overcome. I stared at the check with a mix of awe and grateful humbleness. How could I cash it when I knew she had needs of her own? And so for the next few weeks, I held onto it, unable to bring myself to cash it.

But God kept nudging me. She had generously given and I needed to graciously receive. Would I refuse her gift? I knew God would bless her. And so with deep gratitude and another huge lesson etched in my heart, I deposited her check into our account.

5. Receiving Keeps us Humble 

God does not want humiliation. That should never be part of giving and receiving. But He does want humility. Biblical humility is not hanging my head in embarrassment. Biblical humility is being empty of self. It’s the opposite of pride, where I’m full of self.  They cannot co-exist. Godly humility says “I’m not too hung up on my {fill in the blank} to receive your gift of love” and “thank you for walking with me practically through this need.”

6. Receiving Makes us More Like Christ

Christ is our example in all of this. We know Christ was a generous giver.

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. 1 John 3:16

You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich,
yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9

But Christ was also a gracious receiver throughout His ministry.

As Jesus ministered, a group of women followed Him and his disciples “helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:3)  When He sent 72 disciples throughout Galilee, He instructed them not to take extra money with them but to depend on whatever meals their hosts offered. (Luke 10)

Being in a place of need is no fun. But when others reach out to us in love, we should complete it by receiving graciously. What about you? Have you been surprised that receiving can be hard? Let me know in the comments or on our Facebook page.

This is Day 20 of 31 Days:Braving the Broken. You can find the entire series here.