What God Has to Keep Reminding Me
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. – Proverbs 4:23
People cheer for generosity. They hand out awards for it! It’s football season, so we’ll soon see Walter Payton Man of the Year nominees celebrated for their service. And that’s a beautiful thing. But if generosity drains you dry, it isn’t godly anymore; it’s destructive. I know what it’s like to play the fool and overextend because the guilt sings in your head, “You should be doing more. If you are a good person, you will give like The Giving Tree.”
Don’t get me started on “The Giving Tree”. That’s a misnomer. That story ought to be called “The Taking Boy”. It is not our obligation to give until there is nothing left of ourselves. I’m not even talking about money, necessarily. I am mostly talking about the time and energy that we give to our jobs and other people until we are totally depleted and have nothing left for ourselves.
“Boundaries are your fight for your life.“
2 Corinthians 9:7 tells us that “God loves a cheerful giver”. If giving your time, effort, or money strips away your own needs, then joy gets replaced with worry and stress. At that point, the giving isn’t cheerful anymore – it’s transactional, a trade of your own peace for someone else’s comfort. That is an unhealthy trade disguised as generosity. You may fake it with a smile and a kind voice, but some of us can’t. We can debate which is better – fakery or authenticity – another day, but I stand by the fact that overextended people cannot give of their time, effort, or money cheerfully.
Why do we keep giving to our own detriment? Is it that we think God is smiling down at us because of our selflessness and generosity? What if we were to relabel that pious selflessness and generosity what it really is? It is ignoring our own needs. Is God smiling down at us for that? I do not think so.
I’m realizing that I have often forgotten to love myself, thinking I wasn’t worthy. The real truth is that I am worthy and deserving if only for the simple fact that I am still alive and breathing, but also because Scripture tells us our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit. We generally don’t treat ourselves like we are quite that precious, though.
Speaking of temples…imagine if God gave you a box and asked you to watch over it for Him. Imagine the care you would take. We would never let it out of our sight or our consciousness! We have to start understanding and realizing that we are each that box of God’s that He has asked us to look after.
My grandmother Ruth died when I was in fourth grade. I have a small wooden box that was hers, and inside it I keep the pearl earrings that she wore on the day of her burial. Before the casket was closed, my mother removed her mother’s jewelry and handed it down to me.
For forty-six years, I have always known where that little wooden box was – and therefore exactly where those pearl earrings were. That is how much I treasure them. That’s how much God treasures us. Probably even more so, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine anything much more precious than my grandmother’s pearl earrings.
(Yes, that is a picture of the box and earrings over there as proof. Everybody stores earrings and drill bits together, right? That’s not weird….but I’ll tell you this – I never lose drill bits anymore, either.)
Shirt Math 101: A Very Shirt Story
I have had this conversation with many friends of mine, and some agree, and some don’t…. But the phrase, “She would give the shirt off her back” does not apply to me because I would not give you my only shirt. If I did that, then I would be unprotected – unguarded. I am equally as important as you because God told me so.
Let’s do this like a mathematical equation.
I have a shirt.
You don’t have a shirt.
I give you my shirt.
Now you have a shirt.
I don’t have a shirt.
The overall problem of someone God loves being without a shirt still exists. You have made nothing better.
But if I have two shirts, and you don’t have a shirt, I will be the givingest shirt-giver that ever lived.
Not giving away my only shirt is me guarding my heart so that everything else in my life can keep flowing. Guilt comes because part of me still believes the lie that love looks like worry, like overextending, like running myself ragged, yet Scripture says otherwise.
Jesus Himself walked away from demands. He rested. He protected His time with His Father. Luke 5:16 tells us, “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.” Even when crowds pressed Him for more, He guarded His time and His heart. Guarding the heart doesn’t mean closing it off – it means refusing to hand it over to every crisis and every manipulative pull.
Not that long ago, I walked through a season where I felt like I was always giving away “my only shirt.” I said yes to every request, every need, every demand – until I had nothing left in me for me. I didn’t have the energy to walk my own dogs or knock out a quick 30-minute workout. I didn’t want to read, study, or even enjoy anything, and y’all know this girl loves to play some Madden on Xbox. Most nights, I just crawled into bed with the dread of knowing I’d have to do it all over again the next day.
I couldn’t even fake it – and honestly, I still can’t. I am just not the type to paste on a fake smile and swallow resentment. I let all the words fly! That’s my personality, but it isn’t the best way to handle things. It makes the people who need my help feel guilty, and that cancels out any good in the giving.
I wasn’t helping anyone! I was just exhausted, resentful, and angry at myself for getting roped into all these manufactured obligations.
When everything started turning negative, I realized something: God never asked me to live like that. He never asked me to prove my love by destroying myself. He asked me to guard my heart.
Only recently have I started to learn how to say “no” firmly and advocate for myself. I could always say the word, but then when the sad face across from me showed up, I always caved: “Well, okay…. just one more time.”
Now I’m learning that “no” is holy. Letting go of faux obligations is still a process, but I’m beginning to see my worth through God’s eyes – and I’m realizing He never asked me to live empty.
“But if I have two shirts, and you don’t have a shirt, I will be the givingest shirt-giver that ever lived.”
We have to always consider ourselves one of God’s children. We have to remember how precious we are to Him. You may think it’s an amazing act of goodness to give your only shirt to the shirtless, but if you do, you are hurting yourself (someone God loves) in order to commit this “amazing” act of goodness. You are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Nothing has really changed. One of God’s children is still hurting – you. When you wound yourself to help another, you haven’t solved the problem – you’ve just traded places.
Setting boundaries just means you refuse to drain yourself dry at others’ behest. Boundaries are your fight for your life. Servanthood is not meant to be slavery. Setting boundaries means you have finally realized that you also deserve that shirt.
The truth is simple: God never asks us to bleed out to prove love for Him or others. He calls us to guard our hearts first and to give generously from the overflow.
Prayer For When I Feel Guilty About Saying “No”
Lord, help me remember that guarding my own heart is obedience to You, not selfishness. Teach me to give joyfully from my overflow, not reluctantly from my emptiness. Remind me daily that I, too, am one of Your precious children. Amen.
If you liked this one, give this one a shot: Peace in Pieces