Casting Your Bread

Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later. Divide your gifts among many, for in the days ahead you yourself may need much help. When the clouds are heavy, the rains come down; when a tree falls, whether south or north, the die is cast, for there it lies. If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. God’s ways are as mysterious as the pathway of the wind, and as the manner in which a human spirit is infused into the little body of a baby while it is yet in its mother’s womb. Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow – perhaps it all will.

Ecclesiastes 11: 1- 6.

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This morning, I came across an ancient Arabic proverb, which I have shared with some of my students on several occasions. I personally live by this proverb: “Do good. Cast your bread into the water. You will be repaid someday.”

photo: wilted flowers

Calamity & misfortunes - There’s no guarantee that bad things won’t happen, even if we try with all our might to keep them from happening. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we lose. Misfortune will occur. They’ll come out of the shadows. They will come in the form of bad news or the loss of a job or a divorce or a bad report on our X-rays. We can worry about them all we like, but we can’t change them!

Coping - In the face of such uncertainties, the popular advice would be to consider the clouds, rain, falling trees, and blowing winds. In other words, be calculative. Give only when you can reap a potential profit. Otherwise, hoard it, protect it! The mantra is “get all you can, can all you get, then sit on the can!”

Give, nevertheless! - Giving does not mean we will be free from calamity or misfortune. It does not guard us from future difficulties and pitfalls. When we cast the bread, we can’t determine the currents beneath the surface or the wind factor. Put away the clipboard. Don’t wait for letters of thanks. Don’t anticipate being done in bronze for all the world to see. Don’t expect to get rich… Don’t expect to be reciprocated either – just go for it!

Photo: Banana pecan bread baked by my wife
Generous Giving – Don’t hoard the bread! Let it go! Release it! Give liberally, give in a variety of ways, give broadly – not just to our families or the persons whom we are attracted. And we can’t wait for conditions to be perfect. Start today.

By the way, there is a promise: “… you will find it after many days.” Charles Swindoll writes, “when the bread is cast on the waters, that is, when a life is released to others, there is something remarkable about God’s faithfulness in bringing back any number of benefits and blessings.”

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"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver."

- 2 Corinthians 9:7 -

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Source: Charles Swindoll, Living on the Ragged Edge