“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
• Share everything”

So begins the first of fifty essays in the 1988 book by Robert Fulghum, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. While there is something to be said for the lessons of kindergarten, to say we learned everything we need to know isn’t completely true. Plus it’s actually a little trite. “Share everything”? What about bad attitudes, germs, and lice? However there is some truth, and great value, in learning to share the good things God has given us.

In reality the concept of sharing is Biblical. It comes from God – not kindergarten. In the atheistic world view of survival of the fittest the first principle is “Take what you want. Keep what you can.” But the Bible teaches a different principle by word and example. Look for instance at David who, knowing all was a gift from God, showed us the principle of sharing that gift with all who participated in the accomplishment (1 Samuel 30:23-25). But David’s generosity went beyond just his accomplices to others who had been kind to him before.

David had not forgotten how much help he had along the way and because the plunder from the rescue was so much greater than just their stuff he began a systematic process of sharing it with others (1 Samuel 30:26-31). Saying, “Behold, a gift for you from the spoils of the enemies of the Lord.” (v26), he began with his friends in the tribe of Judah, and going through a list that he had kept, either in writing or in his mind, he started sharing with folks in all the places he had stayed while running from Saul. Vs 31 wraps it up by saying “and to all the places where David himself and his men were accustomed to go.”

Whether he learned it in Kindergarten at Bethlehem, or from his parents, or directly from God’s teaching, David remembered, and practiced, the basic principle of thankfulness and sharing. Do we remember what we learned in Bible class and kindergarten? More importantly, do we practice it? Greed and selfishness are ugly to behold, whether in the kindergarten sandbox, or the mud pit of life. Let us be known as those who remember to share.