Have you ever wished you had more to give? You might like give the down payment on a house, your church really generous contribution, the flood victims substantial help. They need it, and it would give you so much pleasure to play the role of bountiful giver.

It is right to feel generous, and it is right to give wisely. But a self-indulgent personal sense of giving does not always have enough to give, nor the intelligence to give wisely. This is because it is based on a limited concept of the source of all good, God, and a limited concept of His image and likeness, man.

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote in a letter to a young Christian Scientist, "'I wish I could do more for you, but that is selfish for it would give me much pleasure.'" There was no hypocrisy in this, no withholding of any good thing. She continued to have a warm interest in the young man's welfare. But there was a recognition that giving can be self-indulgent and can limit the gift and the giver. She went on to say, "'Let me wish only that my prayers for you are righteous, then I know the result will rest in sweet hope of your prosperity, growth in grace, and the knowledge of infinite Love, where no arrow wounds the dove, where are no partings, no pain.'" ^{We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, First Series, pp. 63, 64;}

Peter and John knew how to give selflessly. At the gate of the temple when the lame man asked for alms, Peter answered, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." ^{Acts 3:6, 8;} And the man did. He entered into the temple with them, "walking, and leaping, and praising God." Praising God, not Peter and John. Of course, they must have been joyous, not because they had shared some of their personal good, but because they had seen the unlimited goodness of God expressed. Such giving has a very different feeling and very different results from a personal sense of giving.

There are times when we are called upon to give silver and gold; then selfish withholding is definitely not the antidote for selfish giving. The way to correct a selfish, limited sense of giving, as with every other limited notion, is to understand the nature of God and man better, specifically in such aspects as revealed in Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 5.}

I learned something about giving at a time when I was serving on the board of directors of a civic organization, a day nursery, which was performing a useful service in the community. People were charged according to their ability to pay, and the rest of the money for upkeep was supplied by the community. Suddenly there was simply not enough to carry on. I felt this service was worth supporting, but I had only a very small amount I could divert to it. I even wasted time daydreaming about what fun it would be to give a large rose-colored amount.

And then I remembered the words, "I wish I could do more for you, but that is selfish." I realized the supply didn't have to come from me and give me the pleasure of bestowing. That was selfish. Every right idea already has what is needs to sustain it from God, the source of all right ideas. I saw that the right ideas of service and usefulness and comfort this activity expressed had their source in the divine Mind and were intact and complete in Mind. I sent off my small check and dismissed it from my thought.

A day or two later I was talking with a friend who mentioned he had just attended the board meeting of a foundation that was looking for a worthwhile activity to support. I mentioned the day nursery and its need, and before the end of the week the treasurer announced that the emergency had been met. She had received a substantial check, many times the size of my rosy dream, and the foundation continued to donate annually for many years.

When we recognize God as the infinite Giver and man as reflecting all that God gives, our giving stops being a drain on already over-taxed limited resources and becomes the substantial evidence of our recognizing the presence of the unlimited resources of good. And our giving stops being the limiting gratification of personal sense and becomes the joyous cultivation of spiritual sense. Only then are we giving wisely and giving enough.