Stop Dying And Start LivingSample

Give Your Life Away 

The second big thing we must achieve to stop dying and start living is vital, and that is to give our lives away. Our lives—our energy, vitality, enthusiasm, excitement, motivation, and optimism—must be given away daily. We cannot hang on to our lives. Whatever we hang on to, we will lose. Whatever we give away, multiplies.

A friend of mine once had a freezer full of thousands of dollars’ worth of meat. One day, the freezer was unplugged by accident and all the meat thawed out. He and his wife decided to have a barbecue and invite neighbors and family over for dinner so they would not have to throw the meat away. Since my friend was a pastor, he thought he would get a good story out of this. He began to pray and asked God to give him a message, a meaning for what had happened to him. Then he felt like God spoke to him. What came out of this situation is this: life is perishable. Life is a perishable commodity. If you do not give it away, the day will come when you are going to have to throw it away. 

We cannot save life. We cannot say we do not want to love people or get involved. We cannot hoard our joy, excitement, enthusiasm, talent, treasures, or time. There is no way we can hang on to those things without losing them. Life is perishable, and if we do not give it away, we will have to throw it away. 

There is something powerful about life; it only grows when it is given away. We cannot store it or save it because it does not work that way. If we want to stop dying and really start living, if we want to have vitality, enthusiasm, excitement, and energy coming back to us, we must give those same things away. Ecclesiastes 11:1 says, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” That bread can represent life, money, time, enthusiasm; and the water can represent people. Cast your life, give your life away: it will come back, wave after wave after wave. 

 Life is an echo. Whatever we send out, always comes back. The Bible says that whatever good you make happen for another, the Lord will make happen for you. We can have everything we want in life if we help other people get what they want. I want to encourage you to give your life away in any capacity. It could be by giving a smile, a handshake, a prayer, an encouraging word, a text, or an email. Whatever it may be, do something that lifts another person.