Burning to Give - Value, Choice, & Fear.

By Dan Carpenter in Thinking About Sunday on 8/21/11

We’re terrified of sacrifice - that’s why we don’t give. Petrified. The deer in the proverbial headlights. We don’t give because we’re so afraid of our choices that we look away mumbling, lying to ourselves, and making excuses.

And I don’t mean sacrificing money. I mean everything else. I mean the time with your kids. I mean your marriage. I mean your sense of self. I mean that hobby you’ve not enjoyed in a decade - maybe the guitar, maybe little model airplanes. I mean your sex drive. I mean your passion for life, for the adventure God has laid before you - I mean your soul. I mean what we sacrifice to GET money. THAT sacrifice.

Because that’s the trade isn’t it?  It’s the norm. It’s what our heroes do - our leaders and our veterans. It’s so hardwired into this culture we don’t even look at the rest of the world - a world in which all the nations that match our standard of living (or surpass it) take an average of six weeks off a year - plus about twenty personal days (sick time included). Not us. We work. We average a week. One week. That’s how important money is to us. Indeed, our time is so limited - our need for money so finely balanced with living our ‘actual’ lives - that most probably wont take the time to read this. Too many words. Tough luck kiddos - I’m giving.

And so for many of us years are flying by - one evening spent ignoring our hearts needs at a time. Our time spent in work, away from the enlivening touch of family, friends and faith, It passes quick. And when our peers use all their sick days or vacation days we punish them don’t we? We look at them as ‘soon to go,’  low hanging fruit that just bleed a threatened posture. We live in a culture where Christmas bonuses and severance are determined by how little of the vacation we’re supposed to take actually gets used - where the standard is NOT to use what one is allotted but to shy away form it, motivated by a fear in our gut that if we don’t, if we take that time for ourselves, for our families, we’ll lose our jobs. Our livelihood. Our money.

But… we’re supposed to give. Financially.

Which means looking at that. And giving that money away - the equity of our time, of our lives - reveals our values, doesn’t it? The value of our money. I don’t mean the cost of a cheeseburger. I don’t mean some lofty concept like wall street finance or the debt markets - ideas as twisted as taffy for all the solidity they have. No. I mean that money - your money - means sacrifice. Work. Time. Energy.

Money is the medium we’re given in exchange for our most precious possession: the time God has given us on this earth. Time that’s a limited resource. We cant get more. We only have so much. And yet everything - everything - in our culture tells us that we need money, as much as we can possibly get. For reasons of greed. For reasons of fear. For reasons far more reasonable - for our very health. It comes at us from all directions doesn’t it?

And so we make choices. We choose one job over another. We choose more money versus less. We choose according to our values. And by making those choices we make very clear where we invest importance.

Then someone asks us to give. And if you’ve been working, near to endlessly, so that you can provide for your family, so that you can help your kids go to college, sacrificing what time you have to spend with them to better their future… how could it possibly be easy to just give it away?

Which is, I believe, the trick. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s what you’re supposed to do.

But even if it wasn’t - even if there was no call to do so at all - I’d recommend doing so anyways. And if there was no one to receive it, if everyone everywhere had plenty, I’d suggest simply burning it. Making clear what you care abput, what you worship. Because giving - or not giving (or hoarding, or clinging, or lusting) - is a statement about what really matters to you. It’s a statement of action, and beyond what words we tell our children or the advice we give so pithily to our neighbors - it actually means something. And here in this culture of worldly things from cars to fancy hotels to medical expenses to plasma TVs - it’s a powerful statement to make. And its an option lost to no one, no matter how youve lived or what youve valued till today. Because - and this is one of God’s greatest gifts - we get to choose again. Every second of every day we get to choose what we value anew. And mark this: choosing where you put your money - gained by exchanging God’s gifting of your time here on earth - is a very spiritual matter. So choose again. Choose to give. Choose to make money of lessor importance than God. Choose to make it of lessor importance than family. Choose, if nothing else, if for no other reason, to prove to yourself that you can - that you aren’t a slave to money. Make a choice about your values - and give.

Prove to yourself that your money is something which works for you - and not the other way around.

Money is God to far too many. Ive felt it. Ive seen it. I know some very wealthy people. I know some very poor people. And you know what? Money has NOTHING to do with their happiness. What makes them happy are their values, the things they live for. Their choices. And none of them that are obsessed, enslaved, or focused on money are happy. Possessions are by their nature possessive - it behooves us to be careful that what we own doesn’t wind up owning us instead. So work if you have to work. Make the money you need to make to live the life you feel God wants for you - something only you can discover. But make sure, absolutely sure, that you place God, your loved ones, and yourself before that money. Or it will all be meaningless at the end.

Because when we die we don’t bury receipts and bank statements. Our lives aren’t about money. When loved ones die, we bury human beings whom we learned form, grew with, taught, and cherished - someone we shared God’s gift with; that we shared life with. And when we do so, money is no consideration. Indeed - those funerals at which money is mentioned are poor, shriveled, and sad affairs; testimony to life ill spent - souls malnourished. And while it is true that there are many things in this life you’ll need money to do I dont believe you’ll find them - not with any joy in your heart anyways - by chasing benjamins, by hoarding them. No. It’s only by letting go, by declaring that beast of greed powerless over you that we have a chance.

All of which is why, if you think about it, I believe you’ll find that giving isn’t even God asking for something form us - its yet another gift from Him. A way to break free. A chance to reevaluate our priorities, and to live as we’d want our loved ones to live - to cherish this life we’ve been given above any and all crass materialism. To live up to all the words we love so much, all the statements we echo without thought, to live those truly - with our actions.  To cherish what matters: relationships, love, self knowledge, peaceful hearts and knowing God. Never mind the rewards of it and never mind the miracles or the returns - give because your life is your own, a gift from God. Give because in doing so you tell the world, God, your family, and yourself what matters to you. Give because there are those that need it far more than you, prove your soul, your empathy, in the act. And give because you’re better than the culture you were born into - because money is not the medium of your soul - because hope is; because faith is.

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