Ever since the first iPad came out, I have always wanted one and I figured maybe this would be the year. Fortunately, I chose not to buy one this past Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It might have had to do with me retweeting the Poverty Elimination Strategy report by Social Planning Toronto. Wouldn’t that be a huge sign of hypocrisy totalk about reducing poverty but turn around and buy an expensive, luxury item that I don’t need?
As many of you know, for about a year, I was doing some shift work, not employed in a full-time position. Our growing family had to manage with a tighter budget to make sure we could get all our bills paid. As I’ve started working more full-time hours, I have slowly felt more entitled to make purchases. I’ve started to buy a few more luxury items like a Kindle (I did score a great deal on it though), but I never would have thought about buying it when I was only working part time. The funny thing is that our actual income has remained about the same as Steph’s been on mat leave. So, it’s not that we have extra money lying around, I just feel more entitled to use it because I earned it.
Now, this isn’t a reflection to make you feel guilty, although that’s often what we do when we talk about offering. Maybe sometimes we are giving out of guilt at church because we hear about how our church is struggling with finances. But if we didn’t hear about it, if everything was going fine at church, we probably wouldn’t end up giving.
My goal here is not to guilt you into giving. It really only works for so long until you get used to it and stop feeling bad about it. My hope, though, is that you see giving not just as a responsibility and something we have to do, but an invitation to live freely, to live in faith. There’s something freeing about not having to worry if our needs will be met because we believe that God will meet those needs. The problem with having an attitude of entitlement is that it becomes about making sure that all my “needs” are met. But if we were to reflect and deconstruct what those needs are, we would quickly see that a lot of our needs are actually wants. What if instead we trusted God with what our needs are instead of just endlessly pursuing what we want?
The invitation here is to start being transparent with your community, whether it’s one or two people or even your small group, about your finances. The question we have to really ask when we think about tithing is: Do we really believe that God will take care of us? That’s what tithing is really about: it’s a practical way for us to start living in this new relationship with Him. It’s not just an obligation or duty, but a way for us to live differently.
For more resources and perspectives on giving financially:
- Financial Stewardship: notes from our Sunday School course can be accessed through the website here (for login info, contact Discipleship)
- ET’s Financial Situation
- A reflection on the importance of giving to missions