fundraising....blah

Ah yes, I thought I might as well admit it: we have to do fundraising. No one is ever excited about fundraising (Ok, I actually know two people who get VERY excited about fundraising). But most people aren't excited about fundraising. It's horrible to constantly have people asking you for money, and all for good causes. Whether it's the guy on the street who may or may not buy boos with your dollar, or the corporate NGO that may or may not actually be building houses and delivering fresh water, no one really likes being asked for money. What I think has proven to be even more of a spiritual cross, however, is this: Yes, I hate bothering people for money because I know how I feel when people ask me for money...especially more money. But the real rub for me is in the humility and poverty of spirit it takes to actually ASK for it. My entire life I have needed nothing. That is to say, whether from my parents, my friends, or my job, God has always provided for me, and often in some means that I could claim pride in. There is a true humbling to realize that your entire livelihood is at the mercy of the generosity of others. We bask daily in God's generosity, and in this often lose site of the reality that it is God providing. We soak up the illusion that I've brought about this goodness by my own means, my own talents, my own abilities. The narcissism that allows for great pride in the accumulation of things, the ownership of the biggest or latest this or that. It is a place rather foreign to this middle-class American to go on his knees not just to God, but to his friends, to his co-workers, and even to strangers, to ask for the ability to eat from day to day. What is even more humbling, however, is the response. Even now, without much asking, people with hearts for the Lord have begun to invest their connections, their wealth, their homes, their own livelihood in me. Me? What am I but a tool for God. May their investments be returned 100-fold, and may this simple gratitude be pleasing to God, and be a blessing to them. There is nothing else we can do Lord- no method of repayment- so we turn and say thank you, and give our lives back to you.