David Green - A Generous Life: 10 Steps to Living a Life Money Cant Buy

I write with the benefit of hindsight. Some might call it a rearview mirror. Im nearly seventy-seven years old, and when I was younger, I never could have imagined how my life would turn out.

I never dreamed that my little business, started inside of my garage in 1972, would one day employ thirty-five thousand employees and process billions of dollars in annual sales. Nor did I dream that our business would one day be able to give away 50 percent of its profits, providing fuel for the gospel around the world. That picture of reaching the nations would have brought tears to my parents eyes.

Over the course of my life, Ive made newspaper headlines, written books, appeared on television and radio shows, and spoken to large audiences. No one would have picked me for any of those assignments in my growing-up years. And certainly no oneparticularly mewould have ever dreamed Id sit in the United States Supreme Court, listening to lawyers argue my case.

Ive lived a truly wonderful life. But the blessings Ive experienced do not rest in the possessions or accomplishments Ive accumulated. Instead, my greatest blessings are those things that cannot be measured. I heard it said once, Not all things that count can be counted. Id like to share with you some of my lessons for living the kind of life that money cannot buy.

I was raised in the Southwest, down red dirt roads lined by cotton fields. I grew up in small towns where drivers waved to every passerby, where store clerks knew their customers by first name. In every town where we lived, I was known as the preachers son, the fifth of six children from Walter and Marie Green. Everything that I have and all that I long to pass on to my descendants has grown from the riches Walter and Marie Green embedded in my life.

Do you remember doilies? They were crocheted mats that people might use for decoration on a table or a sofa. On top of taking care of a big family and a big garden, and being a pastors wife, my mother used to crochet doilies and sell them. Why? Even though my parents gave money together for missions, my mother wanted to make her own offering for missions. So she sold doilies. That memory still sticks with me.

My parents legacy consisted of hard work, sacrifice, and an eye on eternity. In this sense alone, I can say that I was born into a wealthy family.

As surprising as it may sound, my parents were also some of the most generous people Ive ever known. Their spare living and meager income did not stop them from being generous in a thousand different ways. Mother may have had only three or four dresses in her closet, but if she heard of a woman who needed one, you could be sure Mother would soon arrive at the womans doorstep with a dress in hand. Such acts were repeated time and again.

The most stunning evidence I ever saw of my parents generosity came late in the 1960s. My younger brother, James, offered to help my father put his financial books in order. Working through records from many years, James concluded that the most my father ever made in a week was a paltry $138.

We werent that surprised when we heard this. We always knew our parents received little money in return for their labors. What astonished us, though, were the many canceled checks written to churches for as much as $100. We soon realized that our parents often gave almost their entire weekly salary back to the churches they served. What amazing generosity! What big souls!

More than anyone else, my mother taught me the difference between what is temporal and what is eternal. James 4:14 says, What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

A legacy of true value is a legacy made of more than money. A true legacy remembers the brevity of life. It is conceived in wisdom, nurtured by principle, and sustained by character. If we pass only money to the next generation, we lay a crushing load upon them. The inheritance of greater value is the sum of how we live, what we believe, and the content of the dreams that carry us to success. This is what the next generation needs most from us, and what that next generation must prepare to hand off as well.

To hand off this kind of legacy, we must first live it out in our own lives. In the pages ahead, I propose a different way of living life, a way that I have learned through trial and error over my lifetime. This way is a foolproof road that has stood the test of time for generations. It has brought joy, peace, and contentment for thousands of years, but its a road that is being forgotten today. In todays world, it seems that the goal is to make money, and then make more money, until we can finally buy everything we want. Unfortunately, what we really want cant be bought.