Give

Why are some people born into wealth while others are born into crushing poverty?

What is my responsibility to look out for people beyond my immediate circle?

These are big questions to wrestle with and I don’t have all the answers. Giving is a place I continue to need restoration and transformation in my heart. In the past, giving always felt like a drag, a thing I thought I had to do like begrudgingly pay taxes. Thankfully over time God has softened my heart and my tendencies to hoard, particularly through the influence of my generous wife.

Giving is the first money concept to work through here because it informs the way we see everything we are managing. It may mean financial generosity, a willingness to be interrupted and help other people, or having extra food to bring someone in for a meal at a moment’s notice. In this breakdown we will mostly talk about generosity with money.

It’s a rescue from a self-centered life, from thinking it is all up to us. A reminder that everything is the Lord’s, and whatever we have in our hands has been entrusted to us to steward thoughtfully. We don’t own anything - it’s all a hot potato briefly in our hands for a short lifetime. The worst thing that could happen is not running out of money but rather forgetting about God and trusting ourselves to make everything happen.

My mind anchors on the 10% tithe pastors often reference from the Old Testament, so a few quick comments. If you really went by Jewish law, it would be more like 23% every year. If we are in Christ, we are not under the old covenant. That said, Jesus typically raised the bar on Jewish law for his followers. He said congrats on not murdering someone but if you harbor hatred then your heart is in a similarly broken condition. Congrats on not committing adultery but your heart condition is basically in the same place when you think about someone lustfully.

Jesus talked a lot about money, what did he leave us with to anchor on? He made observations and told stories for us to piece together. You cannot serve God and money at the same time. A woman with nothing who outgave rich rulers not by the amount she had but by the faith with which she gave it. A woman who “wasted” wildly expensive oil to garnish Jesus’s head. A story of an owner who entrusted servants with his money while was away, then commended the servants who multiplied the money and scolded the ones who buried it in fear. Stories of rich people unwilling to walk away from their wealth, building bigger barns to store the excess harvest only to die that night. Commissions for his followers to spread the Gospel taking only the clothes on their back.

He even chose a tax collector to be in his inner circle - the type of person everyone around him saw as a sellout betrayer of Jews to the Roman Empire. The early church exploded in part because of its willingness to take in the outcasts of society - the poor, the sick, the widows, the orphans, the people with nowhere else to belong to and no safety net.

Some of his words were about generous giving, others were about wise management of money. Some were about taking care of your family, others were about being willing to leave everything to follow him. So which is it Jesus, do I give or save or spend or invest? Just give me the map and I will follow it! This is where again I say the call as a steward is to wrestle about what to do in relationship with God, not just follow rules.

I wish so badly that Jesus handed us exact percentages, but I think Jesus is more after our hearts than our formulas. He wants us to have eyes to look for needs and open hands quick to act. To not merely check boxes with cold percentages or give out of guilt, but to live in active, dynamic relationship with God and follow where he leads us.

General Principles

You’re not going to hear me giving hard and fast rules to giving, because the very act of drawing boxes around it takes away the heart position and the ability for God to do wild stuff in our lives. Instead I offer personal takes, all with the overall caveat that I think we are to work it all out in relationship with God and with others in community:

Prayer is powerful - ask God to meet needs. He can do it in wild ways, but it’s not a merit system where God gives you everything you want to reward you for your faithful prayer. He might heal the most dire of sicknesses, compel a stranger to write someone a check, provide a loophole that cancels a huge medical bill. Even if he doesn’t, he is still God and if we genuinely seek him he will meet us in our need even if it is in an unseen spiritual way that may look nothing like what we asked for.

You can live faithfully (or unfaithfully) on zero or a million dollars. It’s the spirit of open handedness and the heart condition that says “Lord this is all yours anyways, what am I to do with this?” that matters. Often times the more someone has, the harder it is for them to let go of it. Lots of hitchhiking has taught me that it’s the folks with the messiest cars and the least room to spare that pick you up, not the clean spacious 7-seaters.

Start giving instead of waiting until you feel like it. Often our giving can lead our hearts into their intended posture. Automated giving can help folks like myself that might forget to cut a check every month. I know I want to give but I don’t always feel like it, so I give and let my heart catch up.

Giving should be people focused. To the extent that buildings and programs serve real people, great. Giving to a local church is great. Missionaries are vital. Ministries all around the world are doing real work to meet spiritual and physical needs. The point is stewardship is wildly broader and more involved than just what goes in the offering box.

Focus on a few things. There’s no shortage of need in the world. Step outside and you could quickly find reasons to give away all your money. Then there’s all the worldwide horrors we are bombarded with - hunger, widespread disease, sex trafficking, war, environmental destruction, the list goes on. This should break our hearts, but we are not meant and not able to carry the weight of the world ourselves. Whatever dollars or time we contribute will not single handedly save the world, only Jesus can restore the full extent of brokenness in the world and in our hearts. He has likely given you a heart to see and care about certain things, so focus on what you can be effective in and trust that he has raised up other people with skills to meet other needs that they see. Let go of the need to do it all yourself, release the anxiety, and play the part God has given you to play.

Don’t use credit cards to give. Why take on debt to give, and why lose part of the gift to credit card fees?

Invest now, give later?

I have a math oriented brain and often think - hey I can invest the money I would give now, it will grow and in the future I’ll have even more to give! On paper this may be true, but back to the heart condition of this. It is highly likely that as your lump of money grows, it changes your heart along the way, and you get to the point where you think it’s all yours. So future you has a bigger pile of money to potentially give, but you have become the kind of person who keeps it to themselves. Big piles of things tend to rot - the real risk is that your heart goes with it.

Sure you could ignore giving on a fast-track to wealth, but are you living faithfully along the way? I would hate to die before “someday” comes and my story be a dead-end road of self-centered life.

Conclusion

Again, I can’t tell you what to do with your next dollar.

I recall a story about a young boy with a few fish and some loaves of bread. Something about a massive crowd, a humble offering, and collecting the extras after it all went around…