I told you my wife sold a desk for $100. The guy offered $115. She said no I’ll take less. Get it? The seller talked the buyer down.
She did it because she had a good feeling about him because he was meek and didn’t negotiate or push.
I saw the same thing on American Pickers recently. The seller took Mike and Frank’s first offer almost every time. Once in a while he negotiated a bit. Mike and Frank were pumped at the great stuff they got.
At the end of the show before they left, they gave the seller $400. “You gave us some awesome deals. Take this; we’re still going to make some good money.” They had to argue with the seller to get him to take the cash.
Generosity is built into you and your family
Generosity causes people to want to reciprocate.
Of course the mess of life interferes with the reciprocation. The mess of suspicion, fear, anger, busyness, bitterness, fatigue. It’s not an automatic response. You don’t always see reciprocation, and when you do it’s not always right away.
But be confident that when you are generous you are cooperating and trusting a great law of creation that is built into humans. God has wired us to be sensitive to generosity so that we might be sensitive to his generosity to us in Christ.
Generosity is part of God’s image and he has stamped us with his image. The image is corrupted by the fall and we’re all now naturally selfish, but the seed and echo of generosity remains. You can water the seed with a little generosity to get it to grow.
To fight the voice in you that says ‘good idea, do it later,’ start small
Find the teeniest least noticeable way to be generous to your family, and try to do it so they will never consciously be aware. Bite your tongue. Smile when you don’t feel like it. Subtly step aside. Take the smaller piece. Be gentle for a second when you’re normally hard.
You know your family – try to make the generousness small but meaningful to that person. Keeping it small and unnoticeable helps you get started.
My brother mentioned yesterday how he tries to control trees and shrubs on his property. He said no matter how hard he works, plants will always do what they are wired to do, even growing through concrete over time. He tries to not fight the plant but to cooperate with what it wants to do anyway.
When you do small consistent acts of generosity for your family, you are cooperating with something big that is already at work in them. Over time they can begin to reciprocate. Then, when you begin to get a little momentum going, some good things can happen.
Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully – 2 Corinthians 9.6
What’s the smallest, most invisible act of generosity you could do for a family member today?
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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).
This is day 28.
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