Do you ever tire of being a receiver? Sure, there are days when watching God provide for our needs as global women can be exhilarating and exciting. Like the time our family needed to get back to the US for medical treatment and God provided the last $1,000 we needed for our plane tickets in cash through a co-worker just a few days before we flew out. (Did I mention these co-workers were Korean and we don’t know to this day how they had access to US cash in Asia?!) Or the time one of our supporters provided not one but TWO vehicles for us in the space of 36 months on two continents? 

Exhilaration aside, being on the receiving end can be unsettling. It often leaves me with a nagging feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach. What about all those people who gave toward our plane tickets? What are they expecting of me? What if we don’t make it back to the field? What if I let them down? What strings are attached to their gifts? 

Sometimes being on the receiving end too many times can leave us feeling (gulp) entitled. It’s an ugly truth, and one that I don’t like to admit in my own heart, let alone to others. I find myself expecting to receive and forgetting to be thankful. 

The question rattles around inside of me: What kind of receiver am I? What kind of receiver should I be?  

Paul’s words to the Corinthians deeply challenge me and give me direction in my role as a receiver. Just as those who support me are to first give themselves and their gifts to God, I, too, am called to give myself, my ministry, and its results to Him. You see, we are all receivers: receivers of His great grace. Of His great love. 

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9