giving

Where Greed Hides

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

We’ve been talking about the spiritual disciplines at church.
Last week, the conversation was about generosity.
This week, it was about greed.

And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how the two aren’t always as separate as we like to think.

Because greed doesn’t always look like hoarding money or climbing some corporate ladder.
Sometimes it looks like holding back in quieter ways —
the kind we justify.

Like struggling to give our time.
Or hesitating to offer encouragement.
Or keeping our prayers to ourselves because we don’t want to say the wrong thing.

We tell ourselves it’s not greed.
It’s busyness.
Or insecurity.
Or boundaries.

But what if it’s more than that?
What if greed is anything that keeps us from living open-handed —
with our time, our words, our presence, our resources?

I’m realizing that greed hides in the small things.
In the moments when I pull back instead of lean in.
When I protect my own comfort instead of offering someone else mine.
When I talk myself out of giving because I don’t have “enough” — time, energy, words, wisdom.

But the truth is, if God asked me to give it,
He’s already given me enough to do it.

So maybe the better question isn’t “Am I generous?”
Maybe it’s: Where am I still holding back?
And why?

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
— 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)

The Boundary of Grace

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

We’re called to give.
To serve.
To love freely and fully.

But what happens when the giving leaves us empty?
When our “yes” becomes so stretched that it starts to break us?
When helping starts to feel more like being used than being useful?

Scripture tells us to give without expecting anything in return —
but it never says to give without wisdom.

Even Jesus — fully God, fully love — stepped away to rest.
He said no to the crowd, so He could say yes to the Father.
He gave, but He didn’t give Himself away recklessly.

There is a kind of giving that reflects God’s heart.
And there is a kind that forgets He gave you one, too.

So if you’re in a season where it feels like your love is being taken for granted,
where your kindness keeps getting confused with availability,
where your serving has started to hurt —

you’re allowed to pause.

Not from love.
Not from grace.
But from saying yes to what God never asked of you.

Protecting your peace doesn’t make you selfish.
It makes you a good steward of the one life He’s given you.

So give —
but don’t pour from an empty cup.
Love —
but not at the cost of losing yourself.
Serve —
but let it come from a place of overflow, not obligation.

Your worth isn’t proven by how much you can stretch.
It’s held — always — in the hands of the One who stretched Himself for you.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
— Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)