9. Why Doing the Bare Minimum Won’t Get You Anywhere - Living a Generous Life

Living a generous life goes far beyond money. In this episode, we talk about generosity with time, talents, leadership, and resources. Why you can’t reap what you don’t sow, why doing just enough won’t move you forward, and how trusting God often looks like giving even when it’s hard. 

Scripture: Proverbs 11:24–25

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Transcript

Warm Welcome And Dad Story

Devin 0:10

Welcome to the Uncommon Man podcast. I am your host, Devin Jeffries, alongside a very good friend of mine, Mr. John Pierce. How's it going today, brother? Pretty good, man. How are you doing? Well, it's it's another week. It's gonna be a great week. We're gonna make it a week. No matter what, I'm excited to be here, man. So before we get going, I have to tell you about what happened with something I bought my daughter. Okay. So I've mentioned on this podcast before that I had bought a truck that is a replica of my truck from a power wheels thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had not been able to get her in it to try it because the weather had been too cold. And so the other day it was warm, it was in the 60s. I was like, yes. I cut out of work early that day, and I was like, we are going to party in this truck today. So I I raced to get home. I'm so excited for my little girl to get in her truck that I spent two hours putting together. And I'm I am absolutely jacked to get her in this thing. And it's got a little remote control that I can control it with, you know, because I'm not about to let a three-year-old drive it. And she I I pull I pull her outside and I said, Look, baby, daddy got you a truck. You get a truck for your birthday. My daughter turns around. True story. My daughter turns around and she goes, No. No, I don't know, Daddy. And I turn around, I said, baby, get in the truck. No. And so I, you know, it's one of those things, like as a father, I'm like, Dad, Gummy, you're getting in this truck. And so I open the door and I kind of show her in. And

Setting The Theme: Generosity

Devin 2:00

she sits down, she's going, No. You can see the wheels are turning in her head that she's deciding whether or not she likes this. And then my thumb like hit the button on the remote control, and that thing jerked forward. And you would have thought her soul left her body in that moment. And that from there on it was over. This was not a cheap truck by any means, even for a toddler. And my wife is standing there, she can see the disappointment written all over my face. And I'm like, I'm sure. You're dang I'm right. I'm ticked, man. I bought you this truck. I put it together, and we don't even get to enjoy. Like, I mean, we went down the driveway and back, and she was like, All done. Because that's her favorite thing. Whenever she's doing something she doesn't want to do, she will say all done 900 times to get it to be over and done with.

Jon 3:00

I'm not doing this anymore.

Devin 3:01

Yeah. So she was she was literally all done. It upset me. It hurt my heart. But you know what? She's my little girl, man. I love her. I love her to death. Maybe your sister will like it. So why are we here today?

Jon 3:15

So we're here today talking about generosity. Somebody somewhere just turned this thing off. They were just like, and I'm out. What it means to be generous, how we can be generous, what we can be generous with, because it's not necessarily just with your money. That's right. You can be generous with a lot of different things. But and what that can do for us. Not that you give to receive, but giving is a key part of the receiving. That's right.

Devin 3:45

Point number one here, giving starts the receiving process. Right. When you give, like you said, more than just your time or your money. It it can be so many different things. It can be the resources that God's blessed

Giving Starts The Receiving Process

Devin 4:00

you with. Right. I think back to whenever I was in Bible college and this guy down the hall from us had bought like this 65-inch TV. And you gotta remember this was in like 2012. So 65 was a massive TV. Yeah. Then I think now they're up to 85.

Jon 4:20

90 something. There's hundred, there's 100 and something inch TVs now, but they're not live, man.

Devin 4:24

Just by the movie theater at that point. But anyways, he had bought like the 60, 65-inch TV. And there were people that were like, oh, you could have, you know, the holier than thou type people who oh you could have done so much more with that with that money, with the the the four or five hundred dollars or the thousand dollars you spent on it, you could have done so much more. But this dude, every single week in the dorm room with that TV, used to host all these guys over. He would bring pizza and we would watch funny YouTube clips for hours. And that but that was what he did. So he used it for generosity. Yeah, he used it to bring honor and glory to the kingdom.

Jon 5:12

And if it hadn't been a 65-inch TV, he would have got less people there, probably.

Devin 5:16

Oh, yeah, 100%. I was there to see the 65-inch TV. I don't know about everybody else, but I was there. Exactly. But I think that that is one of those things that we have to when we're generous with our resources and the things that the Lord has given us, I think it opens the way, it pay it opens the door and it paves the way to begin to receive things in your life. Absolutely, it does. Right. And so when you give more to your family, the team that you work with or your company, you begin receiving bigger rewards when you give to them. I think it I think one of the biggest problems is we choose to see what we can get out of people instead of seeing what we can give to them. How can we be more generous? How can we bring honor and glory to God with our houses, with our cars, with whatever? It's kind of like somebody said, Do you think God cares if I buy this vehicle? Well, yeah, I think he cares because he cares about you. And I think if you use said vehicle or said house or whatever to advance the kingdom and to bring honor and glory to God himself, then yeah, he cares. Does that make sense?

Jon 6:45

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. One of my favorite there's so in the Bible, there's I don't know, countless verses, script countless scriptures on generosity. One of my favorites is Proverbs 11, 24, and 25. One person gives freely yet gains even more, another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. That that the last part of that there, whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. That's what you were talking about a minute ago, that guy with his TV. He wasn't necessarily giving a thing to someone, but he was creating a little bit of a community there, and you could say refreshing others. And and like you said a minute ago too, one of the we can give things other than our time and money. For me, one of my most valuable one of the most valuable things to me is my time. Giving giving my time to someone is it it it means a lot to me, and usually I have to really think about it before I

Resources Used To Build Community

Jon 8:00

do. Because it's yes, it's very valuable to me, but I do tend to give it away a little too easily sometimes. And I I'll I'll overdo it.

Devin 8:15

I think by the way, I mean, people need to know you put a lot of time into this podcast.

Jon 8:21

You put a lot of time, you put a lot of effort into that, not just I put a lot of time into a lot of things, and I'm just like I need to calm down a little bit sometimes.

Devin 8:30

But I think I think also I w I I'll just say this for everybody and their brother to hear. Thank you for what you do for this podcast, man. It does not go unnoticed. So you know, when we talk about generosity and things like that, one of the things I think about is back when my wife had our second child, Blakely, we had this we had this young woman come over to the house that's friends with my wife, and she doesn't have a whole lot of money or anything like that. But she she came over and we actually fed her, right? Because everybody somebody started a meal train and everybody had the same idea and everybody brought us pork. My daughter was born two months ago, and I still won't eat pork right now because there for like three weeks, I just ate nothing but pork, and it ticked me off to a degree because I was just like, I'm seriously so tired of pork right now. But anyway, she came over and we were like, here, here, here's some pork. Eat it. So, but anyways, she's sitting over there and she she she's holding my my brand new infant daughter, and she turns around and she says, Hey, I got a question. I was like, shoot, what's up? And she goes, Can I come over next week and clean your house? I was like, sure. Is my house disgustingly dirty? And she'll go, she goes, Well, no, actually, it's not. You wouldn't know that you guys had you know been gone and but just you know had a baby. No, I just kind of got to thinking there's not very much I can give them, but I can give them my time, yeah, I can give them my skills. And so she shows up, sure enough, the next Monday, and she deep cleans my entire house. Nice. I mean deep cleans. But do you know that was one of the best baby gifts we got? Um, yeah. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't get much better than that. Because like I left for the day to go to work, and whenever I came home, my house was deep cleaned, like more than probably I had ever cleaned it. And she, I mean, she had this whole arsenal of stuff. One of the best baby gifts we'd been given, because what she decided to do was to give generously of her time and her talents. And I thought that that was one of the coolest things that that happened. And, you know, I I think for us, it's it's one of those. I my prayer for her was that she was blessed immensely from that. Right. From that blessing that she gave to us.

Jon 11:08

I remember uh when I was so I was in the Navy right after Avalon was born. I was like an E2, brand new baby. So I I made like nothing. I I think I was what $1,400, $2,000 a month or something like that. A little bit, a little bit more since I was married. Anyway. But I wasn't making very much, like barely making ends meet kind of thing. Sure. And there were some people that I worked with that just took up a collection. Dude just showed up at my door one evening. Like I had just seen this guy two hours before. But he shows up at my door, I'm like, what are you doing here? And he hands me like an envelope full of cash. I mean, it was like four or five hundred bucks. And I was like, Are you serious right now? He's like, Yeah, we took up a collection. We know you're barely

Time And Talent As Gifts

Jon 12:00

making ends meet right now because we all know what you make. Because we all make this we like everybody on the planet knows what you make if they know your rank, but it was That's awesome. Yeah, it it was one of the coolest things that they could have I mean, it wasn't a ton of cash, right? But it it definitely helped a lot. Yeah. And I think the thought, the thought of it, like the the fact that I knew that they did that for me was just better than the money itself.

Devin 12:30

Yeah. It's so easy to to be able to put a smile on somebody's face today. Yeah. Right? To go out of your way and being kind. Like that's one of the easiest things to be able to do. I think back to do you remember the the the story of the little boy at the baseball game last year and like some Karen, like the kid caught a home run ball.

Jon 12:52

Oh, yeah. She wanted the ball. She said, she wanted the ball or whatever.

Devin 12:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever hear what became of that little boy? No, I didn't. So not long after, like, I mean, within hours of this game concluding, there was a R V company that reached out to somehow track down the father, reached out to the father and was like, hey, we were made aware of what happened, and we want to make we want to help your boy. Apparently, the way that they got connected was the RV company reached out to the ballpark, to the team that owned the ballpark, and they were able to connect them. They gifted, gifted, let me just say that again, gifted the father a $75,000 brand new RV. Thanks, Karen. Appreciate you, sis. Gifted him a $75,000. The ballpark, then turned around and said, You're going to take said ballpark to the World Series, and here's World Series tickets. You're taking the ballpark to what? Did I say ballpark? You're gonna take the RV. Okay. Sorry. You're gonna take the RV to the World Series, and here's World Series tickets. That's awesome. Here's travel accommodations for gas, and here's more for for food. Like that family's life was turned upside down because of how they responded to somebody who wasn't going to be generous and honestly just wanted to be.

Jon 14:39

Refer to last week's episode about communication. Exactly. So I thought that that was one of the coolest things ever that I that I had ever seen. Yeah, I didn't know that. That that's awesome.

Devin 14:50

Yeah, so but but it begins, giving begins the receiving process. Here's the issue that I think that most men face today, and most people face. We reap what we sow. The problem is we live the opposite way. We want to sow what we don't reap. We want to sow good friendships, lots of what do you call it? Um tree of money, but you don't you don't want to go plant the seed.

Jon 15:22

Yeah, it's like saying, I want to have a great friendship and putting zero effort into said friendship. Yeah, it just doesn't work that way. I want to have a really nice car, and then you don't do maintenance on it or clean it ever.

Devin 15:36

God man, I got a I got a buddy of mine that that's what he's got everything under the sun that you could ever want, but this dude absolutely sucks at maintenance. And I'm like, you have all this amazing stuff, and you trash it because you suck at maintaining it. Do better, bro. Anyways, sorry. Anyway, point is can't reap what you don't sow. That's right. We tend to, like I said, we reap what we sow. The problem is we live the opposite way. I think one of the biggest things to be able to you look, you want to be rich in your life. Think about being rich from an emotional standpoint. Think about being rich from the things that you have. There's a bug. Anyways, but thinking about think about being rich from the things that you have, and how can you

Everyday Kindness And Big Ripple Effects

Devin 16:30

use that to bring honor and glory to the kingdom? Right? Give away encouragement, give it away.

Jon 16:40

It's free, it is, it's free. You know what else is free? Being nice, yeah. Or some people just don't know that, you know, or like kind of like my pancake waffle story from a few weeks ago.

Devin 16:52

It would have cost that dude nothing to just shut his mouth. Yeah, my gosh. I seriously never in my life have I wanted three $1 bills so bad. Just to walk over there, slap it on the table, and be like, Will you please be quiet?

Jon 17:07

There's another point to oh, sorry, getting ahead there. Tithing. Now we can't talk about generosity without talking about tithing a little bit. Tithing is the key to growth of your account. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm gonna I'm gonna tithe every every week and I'm gonna tithe more than the 10%, I'm gonna give 20%, whatever. That doesn't mean you're just gonna give and receive 10 times over because you gave, right? The point of tithing is not to receive. That's correct. However, a generous person, a generous but then person a denous put in Lord, my whole train of thought is just completely derailed. Anyway. Where are you going with this, John? I don't remember now. It's gone. It's gone. All right, fine, I'll pick it up. Tithing is the yeah, there we go. Tithing is the key to the growth of your account. Right. We don't tithe, we don't give to receive. That's correct. However, you like we just said, you can't reap what you don't sow.

Devin 18:32

There's one thing in scripture that God says to test him in. And it's tithing. Test me, he says. Test him and see that your cup not overflows. In other words, you cannot outgive God. Oh no, you can't outdo anything, God, but the reality is of life is this we have way, way more than we will ever need. We are it here in the United States, we are the richest country in the world. And the problem is the majority of us live like we're gonna take all this money with us to heaven.

Jon 19:14

Yeah, all these people living that quote unquote live in poverty. Some people do live in poverty in the United States. Like, don't get me wrong, but a lot of people are just like, I just don't have it. Like, they're comparing themselves to the Joneses next door. Yeah, like go compare yourself to somebody to pick a tribe in Africa. Pick one, any of them. Compare yourself to them and then tell me you live in poverty.

Devin 19:37

The thing that I always uh like if somebody complains to me about money, I always ask them, I'm like, Did you get in a car today? Yeah. Did the car start? Yeah. Did you wake up in a warm bed? Yeah, you're rich.

Jon 19:49

Yeah. Do you know where your next meal is?

Devin 19:51

Yeah, you're rich.

Jon 19:52

Yeah, right.

Devin 19:53

There's so many people on this planet that just that just don't so that that's the thing is when we're generous with

You Reap What You Sow

Devin 20:00

our time, with our money, with our resources, we bring honor and glory. That's a very uncommon way to live, right? Think about the guy showing up at your door with an envelope. Not every day does that happen. Yeah, obviously. We'd love it if we did if it did. Would be cool. But the reality of the situation is we tend to hold on to everything like it's ours. Like you can somehow take it with you whenever you leave this earth. Yeah. Tithing is the key to the growth of your account. And and I'm living proof proof of this because last year in 2025, my wife and I made the decision that we were going to double our tithe from we were given the 10% to 20%. Do you know it was the it was so it was the most we'd ever given to our church in generosity and things like that, but in turn it was also the most that we'd ever made in a year. That's not a coincidence, people.

Jon 21:00

No. I I would also like to point out yes, I mean tithe to your church, but you don't necessarily have to give only to the church. There are plenty of things out there that you can donate to. For instance, when we first started, when I first started going to our church, I if I'm gonna if I'm gonna give, I'd like, if possible, I'd like to know what my money is being used for. Sure. Or have at least know that it's not being used for things that I wouldn't want it to be used for, right? That's one of the things I love. Right. When I first it took it didn't take very long, but not long after we start I started going to our church, I realized I was like, my money's being used for for good things here. Like it's missions, local outreach, all kinds of awesome things that our church. Does. But before that, I was like, okay, what am I gonna donate to? There's there's plenty of things you could donate to. Like and and I because I don't think I don't think when the Bible says tithe, I don't think it means specifically give your money to your local church.

Devin 22:19

No, because the term tithe in scripture actually means if you break that down into the original Greek word, it literally means tenth. Yeah. So that's that's what he's saying there. And the Bible also says, I want to say it's in Proverbs, but I could be totally off there. Please don't quote me on that. But it says that each man should decide in his own heart what he should give. For my wife and I, we made that decision that we were going to give more. And to this day, we started that at the beginning of 2025 here in 2026. In our budget every month is a generosity fund. If I go to Chick-fil-A or the Lord's House of Chicken, as we like to call it, Jesus Chicken. Jesus Chicken. If I go to Chick-fil-A and I pay for the person behind me, right, and I start that train or whatever. Because here's the thing you start it, nobody wants to be the jerkwad that ends it. Yeah. Nobody wants to be the person that's like, they're like, Do you want to continue? No. Give me my free food and let me go. You're behind that baseball team. Imagine. I did that one time, and I went up,

Tithing, Trust, And Provision

Devin 23:30

I'll never forget God told me in that moment for the car to pay for the car behind me. I did. And I got up to the window and I was like, hey, I want to pay for theirs. And they were like, Do you know them? And I said, No. And she turns around and she says, Well, that's extremely generous. You should know that's a family of seven. And I was like, Oh, God. And I was like, What's you know what? No, just shut up and take my money. And so I give her my card. And it was, I mean, it I spent like, I don't know, a lot more at Chick-fil-A that day. And I remember I got home and my my wife was like, Why in the world did Chick-fil-A cost $85? So I explained it to her and she goes, Nope, never mind. Say us. All right, that's hard. Because we've instituted in our household that generosity would be something that we would be known for and use in our lives. Like I said, you're a lot richer than what you actually think that you are.

Jon 24:28

So we've talked about being generous with our money and with our time and with our talents. Yeah. So if you're leading people, your job is to invest in them, not see what they're going to give you. So if you're leading people, something that you can give them is encouragement. Give it away. You can actually, I I would argue that you can gift good leadership because that is something that so few people in this world have ever even experienced.

Devin 24:59

Say that again, because that's good.

Jon 25:01

I was said, I said, I would argue that you can gift good leadership. If you're in a leadership position, it that's something that so few people have ever actually experienced. It is I've had plenty of good leaders and even more bad leaders in my life. And I you learn something from both. Definitely. And I think but you rem you remember both, but the bad leaders, like they really stick out. Like all of the things that they did that I vowed I would never do. You learn a lot from those.

Devin 25:39

When you lead people and you choose to invest in them, you lead your spouse, you lead your children, you lead your coworkers, whatever it is, aspect of life that you want to say, when you lead people and you invest in them, please, please, please remember it is not about what they're gonna do for you in the future. When I invest in people, whether it be through my fatherhood small group or we invest in people through the Uncommon Man podcast and the uncommon man small group, which by the way, super stoked about coming up. But when when I invest in that, I don't do that so that I can see what you're gonna give me down the road, right? Right. I do that because it is it is what what the Lord's called me to do is to be generous.

Jon 26:28

What you're doing is when you if you when you when you're leading someone or leading anything and it's all about what they can give you, you're just being selfish at that point. No. And that is that's the best way to make sure you have the most miserable life possible is to make it all about you. That's right. You start making it about you, just I could spend 30 minutes just talking about reasons you don't want to be selfish.

Devin 26:54

But but I think the problem is this is in generosity, people tend to do the minimal. Yeah. And that's and that kind of leads me into my next point of stop doing just enough. Right. Stop doing just enough. If you do just enough, you will never advance. You will never gain the the the influence that you want. You will never build the kingdom by doing just enough.

Jon 27:20

Yeah, and I think by definition, generosity means giving giving as much as you can, not just enough, because that's not really being generous, that's doing the bare minimum. Another way to put it is to do more. It's it's like it's it's like when when you get in an argument with your wife and you're like, Well, you got food on the table, you got a house, like what more do you want? Like, bro, you're doing the bare minimum. If you're not doing that, you suck at life. You know what I mean? Like, don't do just the bare minimum, give as much as you can.

Devin 27:59

Yeah.

Jon 27:59

Like, it feels so good to me to be generous. And I believe it was I believe, don't quote me. I think Dave Ramsey said this. He likes it to him, being generous is in a way selfish because he benefits so much from it.

Devin 28:21

There's a friends episode about that, by the way. Really? Yeah, there is in the friends episode. Joey says that there is no, what is it, no selfish, any good deed is selfish, is what he's saying. Like, because she says, well, Phoebe will say, Well, I I gave money to this or I did this. Did it make you feel good? Yeah, it was selfish. So, but that's besides the point. But I mean, I'm just saying, like, you're talking about stop doing just enough. I this and I want to kind of camp out here for just a

Budgeting For Generosity

Devin 29:00

second. Do more than what's required. Do more than what is required because that's how you get to the top in life. And you want to know what's at the top? Less people. I mean, it's less crowded.

Jon 29:15

By definition.

Devin 29:15

In business. In business and in life, and in your family, and in whatever it is that you if you want to climb to the top, you have to do more than what's required. If your job requires you to be there by 8 a.m., show up at 7 45. If if you're if your your wife asks you to, I don't know, do the dishes, do the dishes and take out the trash, dude.

Jon 29:42

You will be okay. A friend of mine went to the store for coffee the other day and he came home with three different types of coffee. I mean, he went, he did more than what was required.

unknown 29:55

Yeah.

Jon 29:56

His wife was like, we need coffee. And he was like, I got you. I got you for one.

Devin 30:01

That's funny. Um, you know, it's like the other day, I mean, I you can say it's it's your responsibility as you know, however you choose to divvy up towards in your in your household and whatever. But like the other day, I was my wife just said, Hey, can you take this can you take this trash out? I took the trash out, then I did the dishes, then I folded the basket of laundry. Do you know that she was a very, very happy wife? Because I just took a bunch of things off of I did more than what was required. I did more than just enough. The thing is, is everybody wants to advance in life, but nobody wants to do what it takes to get there. To get there.

Jon 30:46

Yeah.

Devin 30:46

Everybody wants to be at the top. Everybody wants financial security. Everybody wants all these things, but you don't want to do what it takes to get there.

Jon 30:53

That's right back to what we said earlier about reaping what you didn't sell.

Devin 30:56

That's right. You want to be able to advance to the top and and like I said, live in that financial security, but then you're going to work and your work requires you to get there at 8 a.m. You get there at 8 05, and then go, oh, sorry, it was just traffic. Or, you know, it's five o'clock, and buddy, you're out the door then. Right. And so the problem is is we do what is just go further.

Jon 31:21

Yeah.

Devin 31:21

Go further. You want to get to in order to get to where you've never been, you have to do be willing to do things you've never done before.

Jon 31:29

Oh, yeah. That's the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Exactly. So if you keep doing the same thing over and over again in your life and not being generous, you're gonna keep you're gonna keep reaping what you sow. If you don't sow something different, you're not going to reap the results of it. That's so good.

Devin 31:51

Because like I said, if you're not willing to if you want to get places that you've never been, you have to be willing to do things you've never done before. Right.

Lead By Giving, Not Taking

Devin 32:00

That's you can't go to the I put this quote in here that I heard from Dave Anderson. You can't go to the ground demanding a tree without a seed in your pocket.

Jon 32:09

Yep. If you didn't plant the tree, it's not gonna grow.

Devin 32:13

If I could just go out there and go dig a hole and then say, well, you know what, Lord, I would love a money tree right here, but I'm not or or an apple tree or whatever, but I don't put anything in there, I'm not going to get what I want. Right.

Jon 32:25

And I'm gonna reiterate this here because I I think it's really important. Don't, yes, we plant if you plant a literal tree. Yes, you plant an apple tree because you want apples. But when we're talking about being generous, we don't plant the tree, we don't sow just so that we can reap. Yeah, you're generous for other people's benefit. It's not being it's not being selfish. Because when you make, like I said earlier, when you make life all about you, that's the number one way to make sure you live the most miserable life possible. And we're not about that here. And to stay at the bottom where it's very crowded. Right. Right. You make life all about you, it's not gonna work out, trust me.

Devin 33:11

So the question is this is do you trust the Lord to provide for your very for your every need? And I think the majority of us we say we do, but we live like we don't.

Jon 33:22

You know how many times that and I don't know how many times either, so don't ask. But there's been a lot of times where I would go to tithe on a Sunday. And normally I just do it when I get paid, and I'll get paid every week, but when I go to tithe, and I'm like, this is gonna be painful, this paycheck. It's going to hurt. But this is gonna hurt. You know how many times God has come back and been like, give just giving it right back to me, yeah, in some way or another that I was not expecting. Generally more than what you gave, too. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it's not as much as what I gave, sometimes it's not whatever, it doesn't matter. Sometimes it is far more, but it's always what I needed when I needed it.

Devin 34:03

There's somebody out there listening to this that just gave their last dollar. Yeah.

unknown 34:07

Right.

Jon 34:07

Or at least I hope so.

Devin 34:09

But they gave their last dollar and they have no idea how next month's bills are getting paid, and they're terrified. And the reality of the situation is this the Bible talks explicitly numerous times whenever it comes to provide to the Lord providing for your needs. And I think the problem is we choose to read certain parts of scripture and skip over it. But the Bible says something to the tune of look at the birds. Does your heavenly father not provide for them? Well, he might also provide for you. For you, that's right. And so if you're out there and that's and that's you, and you're sitting there and you're saying, Man, I did, I just gave my last daughter. I want to tell you, God sees that. He sees that and he's going to take care of you. You are his most prized possession. He knows the needs of your life. The question is going to become, do you trust him to provide for those needs? Are you able to recognize when your miracle is in the mess? Because life gets messy at times. But I argue this if you're somebody that your life is just very messy, can I go ahead and just tell you you're a perfect candidate for a miracle? That's true. Yeah. Like God never did anything with in scripture with people who had all their crap together. Well, I mean, nobody really has their crap together, but exactly. But a lot of people think, oh, well, you know.

Jon 35:49

It's hard to heal somebody that's not crippled. Well, sure. Or sick or whatever.

Devin 35:55

But what I'm talking about is if your life is a complete crapshoot

Stop Doing Just Enough

Devin 36:01

and things have gone just sideways for months, and it feels like you're you're never gonna come out. Can I just tell you you're a perfect candidate for a miracle? You have to be able to recognize when the miracle's in the mess.

Jon 36:15

Yeah.

Devin 36:16

And then to kind of I guess put a bow on it, I just want to end here. Sometimes the miracle that you're looking for in life is God taking you through something that in theory should have taken you out.

Jon 36:33

Yeah, and I think how the really how that ties back to generosity is it's hard to be generous when you're dealing with really difficult things. Like all of us are going to experience difficult things in life. And in theory, sometimes those things should take us out. But when we maintain faith and maintain do what we know we're supposed to do, even when it's really difficult, especially when it's really difficult, including being generous with our time, money, just talents, whatever, whatever it is that you have to give, when you maintain doing that, it is going to pay off in the long run. That's right.

Devin 37:19

And listen, there are going to be seasons and storms of life where it just sucks. And you don't know how you're going to make it out. But let me tell you, the same God of the universe that provides for your very need for or for your every need is the same God of the universe that saw this season and this storm coming too. Yep. And the same miracle that God wants to bestow upon your life is going to be the thing that takes you through that storm. When in theory, that storm should have been what took you out. Yep. And so I think that as our listeners are going, everybody's going through something. Everybody is. You have no idea what the person in the grocery store that just cut you off, or or that just grabbed the thing that you wanted, or the person in the car in front of you that just cut you off. You have no idea what that person's going through. What if you, what if God wants to use you to be the miracle in their life? And so I just think that for a lot of us, I think we tend to allow the things that that should have taken us out. We tend to allow them to cripple us. Yeah. And if we can harness that into bringing the kingdom, honor and glory, truly believe, we will have more generous lives, more blessed lives.

Jon 38:58

Yeah.

Devin 38:58

You cannot outgive God. And I I guess to put a bow on this, to to wrap it all up, giving starts the receiving process. Give away the encouragement. Do more than what is required. Stop doing just enough and recognize the miracles in your life.

Jon 39:19

Especially be especially generous to those that are quote unquote beneath you. People that work for you, people that you're leading in any capacity, be especially generous to them.

Devin 39:30

That's right.

Jon 39:31

You want to press out? Sure. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for another opportunity to sit and have these conversations that I know are touching the lives of at least a few people. Lord, help us to live more generous lives. Help us to realize that what we're doing is about other people, not just ourselves. And Lord bless our generosity. Bless everything that we give to others. May it may it come back to us, but may it touch the lives of those that we give to. Thank you so much again for this platform and the opportunity to have these conversations. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thanks for listening. Remember to like, share, and subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy this, please pass it along. You can follow us on Instagram at uncommon.man or reach out at theuncommonman.podcast at gmail.com. Keep pursuing excellence, and above all, pursue practice.