Someone once said there are only two prayers: please and thank you. Please comes before God’s generosity; thank you is our response to it.

The Christian story is, at its heart, the story of a God whose love knows no limit—a Creator so moved by love, so filled with grace, and so eager for relationship that there is no end to God’s willingness to give. The whole narrative of Scripture is saturated with divine generosity. “God so loved the world that God gave…” (John 3:16).

If we were to list God’s gifts in a litany of thanksgiving, we might conclude that give is the Bible’s most important verb. God gives life and breath, forgiveness and mercy, community and purpose. God gives God’s very self in Christ.

So the question for us becomes: How will we use all that God has given us to participate in God’s generosity?

True stewardship is not merely about practicing generosity for God, as though we were managing divine resources on God’s behalf. It is about practicing generosity with God—joining in the ongoing work of love that God is already doing in the world.

This is the kind of generosity that grows out of gratitude. It is our “thank you” to the God who never stops saying “please”—please receive, please share, please love.