Lend Without Expectation: A Lesson in Kindness and Grace

What do you expect?

I struggle with that question. When I speak, should I expect comments? (And shouldn’t the comments fall into the category of compliment?) When I write, should people not read it, comment on it, or fawn all over it?

Our world has grown transactional. You scratch my back, I will scratch yours. We barter good for good.

We give votes to politicians in exchange for them doing our bidding. (Many times, they don’t.) When we smile at someone, we expect a smile in return. We help in times of trouble and file it away because when we are in trouble, we are to get it back. Blog posts beg for large audiences and Facebook posts plead for likes.

That’s normal. Societies do not survive without cooperation and goodwill. When people do not respond to each other, life turns into a gruesome dystopian nightmare.

But does that mean I should check my actions to see what you can give back to me?

When people growl at me, should I turn my back on them? When ignored, do I ignore in return? And worse, when they need help, do I calculate with immoral precision “Don’t help them. Do you not remember how rude they acted 23 years ago at 10 am?

I fell on a verse that bruised my conscience.

“And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.” (Luke 6:33–34, ESV)

Lend without expectation. It’s not financial but spiritual.

I once had to test this. A man in my church got crossways with me, for a reason I don’t even know but he took it out in visible disdain. When I started my sermon, he unfurled the Sunday paper like a flag flapping in a gale. He was proving to all what he thought of me.

What should I do? Do I ignore him? What about if he goes to the hospital? Should I do a pastoral boycott?

But the man had newborn triplets, one of which had a hole in his heart. When my wife was out of town, I devised an idea. Instead of stewing, act. I found a casserole recipe and cooked it myself (and I left the arsenic out!). I took it to their home, knocked on the door, and got a frosty reception when he answered the door. I told him that I knew they were having some difficulty and that perhaps this would give them a meal. After an awkward few minutes on a porch, the door closed and I left.

What did I expect? Nothing.

Yet, the Lord works with nothing.

A few weeks later, I got a nocturnal phone call that the baby had died and a friend said, “Can you go to the hospital?” So I made an early morning visit to a hospital to care for someone who cared less for me. The mother rocked the body of that dead child and I helped them.

I did the funeral of a child whose body fit in a box the size of a shoebox. They loaded it into the car to take it across the country for burial.

What did I expect?

They returned and my nemesis grabbed me and said, “I need to talk to you?” What now, I thought.

“I want to apologize to you,” he said. “You treated me better than I deserved.”

Lend without expectation. Let the Lord balance books.

Smile even if no one smiles back.

Help even if ignored.

Love even if it snarls back.

Don’t act based on what you will get from it. Act in a way to ensure that your actions show the Lord. He will reward even if rebuffed today.

Lend without expectation. It makes my life richer, and yours as well.