Some time ago I read a story by Robert Lee Sharpe. He told that early in his life, he and his father took a broken hoe and a broken rake down to the blacksmith shop one day to be fixed. A few days later they went back to old Mr. Trussell’s blacksmith shop and the hoe and the rake were fixed as good as new. The father asked old Mr. Trussell, “How much do I owe you?” And the man said, “Oh, the job was so small there is no charge for that at all.” But the boy’s father would not accept that answer. He reached down in his pocket and pulled out a bright new shiny silver dollar—and that’s when a bright new shiny silver dollar was worth a bright new shiny silver dollar. He tried to pay the blacksmith, and the man refused by saying, “Can’t you let a man do something just to stretch his soul?”
There are a lot of God’s people today whose spiritual lives resemble a shriveled-up prune. They have never stretched their soul at all by giving. They’ve been dropping pennies, dimes, quarters, and dollars into the collection plate that they could very well do without, and they never have really made a sacrifice. They’ve never gone without anything in order to support the kingdom of God or to meet the needs of other people. And because of that they have failed to experience that overflowing generosity that Paul was talking about, and they have missed the great blessing in life.