{"id":554,"date":"2026-03-14T10:11:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/?p=554"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:11:04","slug":"giving-giving-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/14\/giving-giving-giving\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving, giving, giving."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"140\" height=\"204\" class=\"wp-image-41\" style=\"width: 140px;float:left;margin-right:10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/JackiBelile-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"The Rev. Jacki Belile\">In certain conditions and seasons, we can name (<em>must\u00a0<\/em>name) a depletion that can occur because we are finite beings. That&#8217;s the &#8220;natural&#8221; way of things and in God&#8217;s way we learn the lessons of rest, trust, letting go, saying &#8220;no&#8221;, receiving help, adjusting expectations, pruning back our spending, exercising new disciple or directions, maybe being gently refined in understanding the underlying motives in our compulsions to give.\u00a0<br><br>In God&#8217;s abundant wisdom, there are also\u00a0other gifts given to us through the life of Jesus Christ and His Spirit tending us as individuals-in-community-in service.\u00a0 As we learn to trust God as our Source and Jesus as our Way, we learn there&#8217;s joy in sincere sacrifice, taking risk, sharing vulnerably, fulfilling duties, giving lavishly.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit would take us\u00a0beyond our ego-based\u00a0versions of safety, protection, hoarding, wasting and stinginess.\u00a0<br><br>What an adventure we are each uniquely on!\u00a0 Together, we are also discovering the depths of God&#8217;s journey as we discern our giving as an expression of ministry together as Christ&#8217;s gathered body named\u00a0Eden UCC. I hope our Word, Song, Reflection and Conversations this week will bless our journeys as we take a lavish dip in Scriptural perspectives on giving.\u00a0 I pray you&#8217;ll apply this with discernment to your giving of time, talent and treasure this season.<br><br>\u00a0<em>For Love&#8217;s Sake,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Pastor Jacki&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In certain conditions and seasons, we can name (must\u00a0name) a depletion that can occur because we are finite beings. That&#8217;s the &#8220;natural&#8221; way of things and in God&#8217;s way we learn the lessons of rest, trust, letting go, saying &#8220;no&#8221;, receiving help, adjusting expectations, pruning back our spending, exercising new disciple or directions, maybe being<span class=\"post-excerpt-end\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/14\/giving-giving-giving\/\" class=\"themebutton\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edenuccchicago.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}