Excessive giving reveals the unsearchable depths of God’s love, the bottomless well of his heart. Nothing is wasted simply because it isn’t noticed by us. Every gift is of value because every gift is an expression of eternal love. For you. For me. The extravagance Dillard speaks of, the extravagance that surrounds us, is the unceasing, unparalleled expression of God’s love. God is spendthrift because his love is eternal.

As I spoke recently with The Laymen’s Lounge about The Book of Giving, one point that kept coming up in our conversation was God’s prodigality (his being excessively lavish) in the good things he gives us. And what blows my mind is that the vast majority of God’s gifts go unnoticed. It’s one thing to be prodigal; it’s another to be prodigal anonymously; and it’s still another to be prodigal anonymously towards people who will miss most of your gifts. That seems like such a waste to us, doesn’t it? But there’s something deeper being revealed here.
Yesterday, the sunset that burned the underbellies of our gray-purple clouds with pink and gold, igniting them like clothes cast off from the ancient bodies of giants, drifting toward the orange horizon—how many people in our town never picked their head up to look at it? Some thousands. And yet the gift was still given. Or those two red-tailed hawks that circled just above our house, dancing with each other as if connected by a long, invisible rope—why was I the only one to see it? Or that fleeting sense of warm sunshine on my skin as I started my car—I barely paused to notice it. Why such excess, which appears to be wasted? Annie Dillard once wrote, “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 10). But most of the time we aren’t there, or can’t be. Why does God still run the world this way?
I had to laugh when I read Dillard’s description of nature and the insects she finds in the wild.
Nature is, above all, profligate. Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once. This is what the sign of the insects says. No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque. If you’re dealing with organic compounds, then let them combine. If it works, if it quickens, set it clacking in the grass; there’s always room for one more; you ain’t so handsome yourself. This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent.
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 66
Why the extravagance? Why does God give us billions of gifts every second (even the chance to marvel at a myriad of strange insects) when most of us won’t end up seeing the majority of them? Why is God so spendthrift?
Prodigality and the Heart of God
We have to start answering all of our questions about God with the Creator-creature distinction. Our understanding of gifts isn’t his understanding. 
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The Holy Spirit must begin a work of illumination before any unbeliever will ever understand and receive the gospel. The Spirit must continue to perform this work for all believers as they wrestle with the text of Scripture. While He does not interpret the Bible for us, He does help us to understand the significance of the text. He shows us the difference that it ought to make in our lives. 

Unsaved people in their natural state do not receive or welcome the things of God (1 Cor 2:14). Divine truth seems foolish to them because it is spiritually discerned. While they can exegete texts and can grasp what the Bible says, they cannot appreciate its relevance or know its significance because they reject the Bible’s frame of reference. The truth that they grasp is useless to them since they do not know it as it ought to be known.
In the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul dwells at length on the contrast between the wisdom of the unsaved world (which is ultimately foolish) and the (ultimately wise) foolishness of God (1:18–31). He states that he explicitly repudiated displays of human wisdom in his presentation of the divine truth (2:1–5). Instead, he affirmed the wisdom of God, the rejection of which led the rulers of this world to crucify the Lord of glory (2:6–8). The divine wisdom focuses upon the crucified Christ (1:17–18; 2:2). This hidden wisdom (i.e., Christ crucified) is what God has ordained before the world to the glory of His people (2:7).
At this point in his discourse, Paul writes one of the most frequently misunderstood statements in all of Scripture: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (2:9). This verse is commonly understood to be talking about the glories of heaven, as if heaven were such a wonderful place that we cannot even imagine it ahead of time. While it is certainly true that we cannot imagine how blessed heaven will be, that idea is completely foreign to this context.
Rather, Paul has been talking about God’s hidden wisdom. It is wisdom that has been rejected by the wise and powerful of this world. It cannot be discerned through natural observation or invented through natural imagination. Nevertheless, God formed His plan according to this eternal wisdom, which comes to a focal point in the cross work of Christ. What God prepared for those who love Him is not merely heaven, but all of salvation and everything that God had to do to secure it.
If this wisdom cannot be known through natural observation or invented through natural imagination, then how could anyone ever receive it? Paul answers this question in only one way: God revealed it. Revelation may be defined as the disclosure by God to humans of truth that they did not know and could not otherwise have known. Paul’s point is that natural observation and imagination cannot arrive at true knowledge of the things that God has prepared for His people, but God has Himself revealed them (2:10).
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Each day, we must proclaim the gospel to ourselves and others. We must defend the faith against those who assault it. We must commit ourselves to Christ and, by his grace, keep striving towards maturity and Christ-likeness in him. Most importantly, we mustn’t permit ourselves to stagnate or wallow in laziness. Like Paul, we “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

There is a quote often wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill, but whose origins appear to be lost, that says, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” There is a great truth to it. It reminds one of the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13–14: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Past accomplishments should not and cannot dictate our futures. Failures must not determine our ends. Faith, courage, and hope firmly rooted in Christ, ultimately, are what count as we strain towards the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We who are in Christ must press ever onward, toward the goal ahead of us, that we might finish the course of this life with joy and gladness.
Of course, we ought never forget that our justification by faith alone is the very means of our security in Christ. We are in no danger of losing our salvation. We need not work to stay saved. However, this does not excuse us from actively living out our faith in practical obedience to the Lord; the one who is saved will work as the indication that they have been saved (cf. Eph 2:10; Jas 2:17). This means that our personal development and spiritual growth is essential. We are to never stop growing as Christians. Even elders in the church must strive toward spiritual growth. There’s always more Bible to learn, more habits to improve, more sin to kill, more souls to evangelize, more saints to disciple, and more to be done. If ever we find ourselves thinking that we have made it, or perfected our faith, then we will know that we have missed the mark.
Consider pastoral leadership. A pastor who stops spiritually growing will eventually stop leading. A pastor cannot expect his people to continue to spiritually grow if he himself has stopped growing. After all, if he has stopped growing, one of two things will happen: either his people will stop caring to grow themselves and thus stagnate in the faith, or they will surpass and leave him behind.
Yes, pastors must strive toward spiritual growth. But so too must all other Christians. Stagnation is never a positive thing. If a man is running a marathon and decides that he is comfortable where he is, but only ran half the marathon, then the race will remain incomplete. If a mountain climber says that they’re happy to have climbed only three-quarters of the way up the mountain, and now they’re content to stay where they are, then they will likely freeze to death.
So, too, the Christian cannot be content with their current spiritual growth. While we find perfect joy and contentment in Christ alone, we must simultaneously see the many improvements we must make in our walk with Christ and strive to push ever ahead. What then are we to do to forget what’s behind and reach towards what’s ahead?
Our spiritual Growth Depends on Our Partaking of the Ordinary Means of Grace.
The very first step to take towards spiritual growth is profoundly simple, yet also the most important. In fact, this step ought to be repeated, to various degrees, daily. It holds true for elders, deacons, kitchen cleaners, sound system operators, janitors, children, elderly, and everyone else in between.
Spiritual growth requires the ordinary means of grace. This means that studying the Scriptures, praying without ceasing, attending church, fellowshipping with the saints, and partaking of the Lord’s Supper are all simple, yet highly effective means of grace that God has gifted us with to mature us in Christ.
Many miss these ordinary means of grace, though. Some are so busy seeking the next “big thing” that they miss what is lying right before them. They seek thrills and highs, hoping for miracles and revivals, while ignoring the biblical habits that are necessary to shape us into the image of Christ. They spend so much time seeking spiritual highs that they miss the seemingly ordinary things of this life that are actually quite extraordinary. It may seem a small thing to pick up the Bible and study it, and it may even appear to be impossible that doing so would cause any amount of spiritual growth to transpire. Yet, that is exactly what we’re called to do. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). That isn’t a trick, some sort of nasty deception, or a promise contingent upon spiritual elitism. No, the one who puts forth the diligence, effort, and hard work needed to study the Bible will be one who has no need of shame because they can rightly handle the Word. That’s a mark of spiritual maturity.
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