Today Brian began a sermon series called “Extravagant Love”, and as such we’ve been discussing ways that one can show extravagant love to others. I’ve been mulling over this topic in my head considerably lately – and it all started with the lady at Starbucks who paid for the entire order of the person behind her in the drive thru line.

Over the 10 years that we’ve been married, Brian and I have been on the receiving end of some pretty extravagant acts of love. Financial gifts from family members, a very thoughtful gift of US cash from a couple at church in order for us to have spending money on our honeymoon, a car loaned to us during a time when our only vehicle needed significant repairs and then *given* to us outright when we went to return it, folks from our church babysitting Josh so that we could have a night out together, a group of friends who surrounded us with acts of love when Brian fractured his back… and many other acts of kindness and love that impacted our lives significantly.

If i’m honest, i don’t know how much i’ve gone out of my way to do things like this.  And it’s easy for me to be generous to those i already know and love.  But what about those i don’t know?

Recently, Brian and I were given the opportunity to do something for someone we’ve never met and may never meet.  Through friends at church, we became aware of a family who had lost everything in a fire around New Years.  Husband, wife and 4 month old baby boy – left with literally nothing.  Many people came together and donated much needed items for them to start over, but they had been camping out in a family member’s basement and had no bed to sleep on.  When we heard about their need for a bed, we both felt immediately that we should offer our guest room bed.  I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gave us to load that bed up on a friend’s pickup truck and watch them head off, with a load of other items for this family, to meet up with another person from our church and take two truckloads of stuff to a town an hour north of Albany, to where this family was staying.

I can’t imagine what they’ve gone through – the trauma of losing their home and belongings must have been immense.  And no one can afford to replace an entire household worth of stuff overnight.  How thankful I am that God moved in the hearts of so many people to be generous and give to this family.  I don’t tell this story to give myself a pat on the back – I do it because as i reflect on the past few months, and our journey to be debt-free so that we can “live like no one else”, i am in awe, thankful, and amazed at the things God does through people.  And i can tell you that being part of an act of relatively extravagant love feels REALLY good.

I recently received a message from a friend on facebook on this subject.  I’ll let him remain anonymous, but suffice to say that he is Canadian and therefore inherently cool 😉  Back around Christmas, he had made a habit of paying for the order behind him in the drivethru at Tim Hortons.  He was just thrilled to be able to bless other people in that unexpected way.  His message today told me “the rest of the story”.  He was in the Tim’s drivethru, at a time when he doesn’t usually go there, when the people at the window informed him that his order was being taken care of by the guy behind him.  It seemed that the man in line behind him recognized his personalized license plate from a time in December when my friend had paid for his order, and he wanted to do something nice in return.  The girl in the drive thru window was really excited that he was getting “paid back” for his good deed, and obviously his act of love had a memorable impact on that individual.

we go through life often being preoccupied with our own troubles and challenges, even our own joys.  it seems to me that there are opportunities every single day to show extravagant love, to be truly generous with time, money, possessions and talents… and we probably miss out on a lot of them.   what if we were to head out each day with the intent of *looking* for those opportunities?  hold a door for somebody, pay for the order behind you in the drive through, offer to babysit for the tired parents next door, surprise your child’s teacher with a ready-to-heat dinner on a Friday afternoon at pick-up time, pay for a tank of gas for a random stranger when you’re filling up… the possibilities are endless.  As you bless others, i guarantee that your heart will (not unlike the Grinch’s) expand and fill with warmth, and you will begin to look for and find many other chances to show extravagant love.