{"id":196,"date":"2009-03-12T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T15:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/of-fish-symbols-and-generosity"},"modified":"2009-03-12T11:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T15:05:00","slug":"of-fish-symbols-and-generosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/of-fish-symbols-and-generosity.html","title":{"rendered":"Of fish symbols and generosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChristianfishWEB%5B4%5D\" “You will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ”<\/em> (2 Cor. 9:13 NLT).<\/p>\n

“How did work go today?” I asked my son, Jonathan, who works at a car wash in Raleigh trying to make a living while being a husband, an expectant father, and full-time seminary student at SEBTS in Wake Forest.<\/p>\n

“Fine.” He replied with his usual non-specificity.<\/p>\n

“Any tips?” I asked (He makes most of his money on tips at the car wash).<\/p>\n

“Yeah, some.” He said. “It was a decent day.”<\/p>\n

“Who gives the best tips?” I questioned, hoping for a more inspiring dialogue.<\/p>\n

“Well, I’ll tell you who doesn’t tip.” He answered. “People with fish symbols on their car. They rarely if ever tip!”<\/p>\n

“You’re kidding.” I said, hoping he was.<\/p>\n

“Nope. If you see a car roll in with a fish symbol, you can be sure they will be the most likely to complain about a spot we missed and also the most likely to stiff you on the tip.” He stated in scientific fashion, like a researcher who had obtained results that were disappointing.<\/p>\n

“That makes me mad!” I exclaimed. “People should either pull those fish off of their bumpers or start giving generously like the Lord they say they follow!”<\/p>\n

“Yep.” My son replied, not seeing the need to add to my outburst.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking about this conversation with my son a lot this week. So, this Sunday, as we continue our series on the Seven Habits of Growing Christians, we’ll be looking at the “Habit of Gracious Giving.”<\/p>\n

I think it’s time that Christians started being known more for their giving than their grumbling. Don’t you?<\/p>\n

So, either reel those fish in or start giving generously like Jesus! We should be the most generous “tippers” in America!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ” (2 Cor. 9:13 NLT). “How did work go today?” I asked my son, Jonathan, who works at a car wash in Raleigh trying to make a living while being<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}