This article was written by Dave Burchett. It was published on his blog http://www.daveburchett.com/archive/2009/12/14/8036.aspx and republished here by permission.

Truth can be so annoying. If annoying truth was a Jeopardy category it might look like this…

“I’ll take Annoying Truths for $100, Alex.”
This famous preacher said,  ”Give me five minutes with a person’s checkbook, and I will tell you where their heart is.”
“Who is Billy Graham? I’ll take Annoying Truths for $200, Alex.”
This missionary to India said, “You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving.”
“Who was Amy Carmichael, Alex. I am getting very uncomfortable with this topic so let’s take “Sins that make you worse than me for $100.”

Money is an uncomfortable topic for followers of Jesus. One anonymous writer noted that a lot of people are willing to give God the credit, but not too many are willing to give Him the cash.

Twenty-nine years ago a man in Kansas City made a choice to give away the cash. It was a choice that changed his life and the lives of thousands more. The Associated Press reported that for the next 27 years, a man known only as Secret Santa roamed the streets every December quietly giving people money. He started with $5 and $10 bills. As his fortune grew, so did the gifts. In recent years, Secret Santa handed out $100 bills, sometimes two or three at a time, to people in thrift stores, diners and parking lots. He anonymously gave out about $1.3 million. It was a long-held holiday mystery: Who is the Secret Santa? During Christmas of 2007, weakened from chemotherapy and armed with a desire to pass on his belief in random kindness, Secret Santa finally revealed his identity.

Larry Stewart, a 58-year-old businessman from the Kansas City suburb of Lee’s Summit, Mo., made his millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service. While Stewart also gave money to other community causes in Kansas City and his home town of Bruce, Miss., he offered the simple gifts of cash because it’s something people didn’t have to “beg for, get in line for, or apply for.”

His epiphany happened just before Christmas in 1979. His circumstances were dire. For the second year in a row he had been fired just days before Christmas. He admits that he was wallowing in self-pity when he learned that giving returned an inexplicable joy. That simple discovery changed him, the entire city of Kansas City, and beyond. Let’s pick up the story as Stewart was nursing his wounds at a drive-in restaurant after getting fired once again. He describes that December day in his own words. Read the rest of this entry »