My youngest son is addicted to the piano. He plays it for hours every day. He watches endless videos of people playing piano. He spends his money on piano books. He falls asleep listening to recordings. It consumes his mind, his heart, his time.
It’s no surprise then that he talks about it with whomever will listen. But as a middle school boy, there are few friends who are interested. So, it was such a joy for him to meet other pianists at a music camp we sent him to. It’s not a large group of kids who are as dedicated to this craft as he is, but they exist and are his tribe.
This little tribe has a chat group through an app where they can share their passion for piano. They ask each other questions about what to play next and share videos of themselves playing pieces they’re learning.
But my son just got a note from one of the camp counselors which amounted to a “stop bugging me” brush off. The young man said he’d be glad to give my son lessons but that he doesn’t have time to answer questions and give advice for free.
It was deflating.
It made me think about the great people I know. And if there is one characteristic they all share, it’s their willingness to give themselves away for free.
Eugene Peterson had a massive impact on my life. Some of it was paid for — I took classes from him at Regent College and I bought his books — but most of it was given to me at no charge.
He answered every letter I wrote. He talked with me every time I called. He let me stay at his house. He prayed for me on his own, giving his heart and time to me even when I didn’t ask for it.
But here’s the amazing thing: He did the same thing for hundreds of people.
He sold millions of copies of his books. His time was precious. But he never stopped giving himself away for free.
But this isn’t unique to Eugene. Every truly great person gives themselves away.
Another of my heroes is C.S. Lewis. Like Eugene, he wrote a shelf of books. And like Eugene, he spent hours each day writing letters to people who had written to him. There’s a whole book of collected letters he wrote to children. It shows so much of his character that he took kids seriously, giving his time, his mind, his paper, his ink, his postage to them.
Jesus must have had people who supported him financially, but we don’t read about that in the Bible. Instead, every word recorded from his mouth came from conversations and speeches and other events that no one paid a penny for.
The Corinthian church was mad at the apostle Paul because he refused to take money from them. He wanted to make it clear that what he said to them wasn’t influenced by money. He wasn’t going to sell the gospel to them (2 Cor. 2:17). And he wasn’t going to avoid saying the necessary hard things to them because they paid his bills. In fact, the only church he even allowed to give him financial support was the Phillipian church. His letter to them was in part a thank you letter (Phil. 4:15-16). But even it, along with his other letters, was a gift.
We only have a limited amount of time on this planet. And some people will hoard their time, never giving it away because it’s so precious.
But the truly great ones know that the value of their lives is too great to reduce to dollars and cents. And they also have a sense of the value of the lives of others as well. As they give themselves away for free to others, they receive the lives of others who reach out to them.
It’s a strange economy that the great ones live in. Rather than being an exchange of money for services rendered, it’s an exchange of love.
When we see other people as friends (or at least as potential friends) and not as revenue streams and annoying time wasters, then we will gladly give ourselves to them with no thought of compensation. And that’s the kind of life I want to live.
I am much more interested in friends to love, than in clients to pay me. Do I need to make a living? Sure. But the measure of a life well lived has less to do with how much money I have in my bank account than it does with the friends I have in my heart.