One of the most famous passages in the Bible is found in Luke chapter 6 verse 38.  “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." 

Did you catch the last part of that verse.  “For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  In psychology this is called parallel process.  A husband may resent his wife for not taking initiative sexually, while his wife will resent him saying, “You don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”  Their resentment runs parallel.    A Husband may anticipate his wife’s mood and avoid the potential conflict, while she is busy reading his mind thinking he just does not care.  A wife’s anger with her husband for “letting himself go” will parallel his anger that she spends too much money.   A husband’s denial will parallel his wife’s inability to see different perspectives.  With the measure
you use, it will be measured to you.”  Parallel process.  What is your parallel process?

Now let’s talk about giving and trust.  How much of yourself do you give?  Husband if you want your wife to place herself in the most vulnerable physical position known to mankind,  you must place yourself in a vulnerable position emotionally.  Talk to her about you and listen to her about her.  

What measure do you use?  If your measure is based on what you get and your partner’s measure is what he or she gets from you, will-conflict between you will result.  For example, have you ever come home from work and been asked, “how was your day?”  You say you had a hard day.  Your partner says, “Let me tell you about a hard day!”  It’s as if the one who has the harder day wins.    When your measure for giving is what you get from your partner you will increasingly give less and receive less in return.

Giving because you are free to give is completely different from giving to see what you may get in return.   In other words, giving as an act of adventure is different from giving to secure yourself or your relationship.  So, is your “measure” designed to free you to risk more or designed to secure your interests.  Does your giving promote risk or safety?

Gary Chapman suggests couples have five love languages: (1) Acts of Service, (2) Quality Time, (3) Words of Affirmation, (4) Gifts and (5) Physical Touch.  Typically, you give your love language to your partner who has a different love language and he or she does not feel loved at all. 

For example, a man who wants physical touch will hug his wife thinking she is feeling loved.  NOT!  Her love language is acts of service.  She feels loved when he does something kind and thoughtful for her.  On the other hand, she is constantly doing kind and thoughtful acts of service for him.  He thinks, “don’t bother, I can do that for myself.  I need a hug.”

Giving your love language is clearly designed to secure your interests, while giving your partner’s love language can be giving as an act of serving your partner.  The vitality and vibrancy of a relationship is in the ability of two people to give of themselves completely while remaining separate.   Vitality and vibrancy is lost as two people insist on self-protection and safety.  The more two people honestly risk hurt, disappointment and anger the adventure of an unfolding relationship emerges. 

This qualitatively different kind of giving requires each person to be secure beyond themselves in order to risk the relationship.   As both people rely on the character of God being lived out of them, security develops within them.  Confidence in the character of God allows you to give more from a spirit of adventure than a spirit of fairness, timidity or safety.

Example:  One afternoon I was preparing to teach a class when I remembered an experience I had four years prior. 

I was sitting in a relative’s living room as he told me how he had come to make a large sum of money.  He was proud of his accomplishment and was telling me about his success when all of a sudden and without warning, I began to feel greed and envy well up inside.  I was happy for him, but envious all at the same time.  I wanted what he had.  Telling me his story exposed the greed and envy within me.

As I recalled the feelings and thoughts associated with this experience, I was impressed to tell this about myself in the class.  Initially, I was quite reluctant and rejected the thought.  I began to rationalize that these people didn’t need to hear about my greed and envy.  I thought, this story isn’t relevant to the content in the class.  Then it occurred to me there was a more significant reason for telling the story than the story itself. 

I realized that to give them the story because of them was not giving freely toward adventure.  To give them myself in telling the story because of the character of God in my life would be THE reason to tell the story.  Cooperating with God, I shared this story with the group that evening.  Only after humbling myself to this different kind of giving did I know the adequacy and character of God in my life. 

Considering this experience, I asked myself, if I had given myself to the class and word got back to me that I was greedy and envious and that I could not be trusted, how would I react?  How would this affect me?  I would have felt unjustly accused because I gave myself away to the group in an effort at helping them and they used this to hurt me.  Giving to secure my life, I would determine never to expose myself this way again.

What response I would have had if giving myself by telling this story with a different motivation to know the sufficiency and character of God, word got back to me that I was greedy and envious and that I could not be trusted, how would I react?  Would I feel unjustly accused or would I accept that this is part of the process of giving?  Having a different motive in giving myself, the group can use what I have given them in whatever way they choose.  My Sustainer continues to do His work in my life regardless of what the group does with the information.

Can you see the difference?  Can you give differently?  Give Liberally.  Give unreservedly to know power of God in your life far beyond your partner.  Giving freely and liberally is freeing and liberating.