Money, God, and Me
I used to dream of the day when I could serve God by giving money away. I could give to this project or that project, I could help build buildings and do all of these cool things because I had the finances to give. I could even be involved with missions without getting my hands dirty. Neat, right?
But I figure that is a sad and ever-present perspective of Christianity. I wanted to work hard, get a bunch of nice things, build up my cash hoard, and then start following Christ’s commands. That way I could have my cake and eat it too.
And this comes back to an intrinsic human desire to keep as much power as possible. We want to be in control of our situations—we don’t want to give that power away. And by doing so, we miss out on so many good things in life. I wanted to give God glory in a financial way, and that was bad.
Why was that bad? It’s simple: I wanted to give God only parts of my life. This is going to sound controversial (especially to all of you who have heard sermons on tithing recently)—God doesn’t want your money. He doesn’t need it—He can get it from wherever He wants. And in spite of the fact that God has everything He could ever need or imagine (He’s perfect, you know), God still wants you.
He’s not interested in sections A and B of Andrew. He wants all of Andrew. And the funny thing is, when He has all of me, He’s going to get my time, my relationships and my money. It seems as though I was trying to barter with God over something I had no control over: my life. I wanted to section it off and offer up the friendly parts and times pleasing to me. And God simply said, “No, I’ll take it all.”
And with all of that, the phrase Carpe Diem rings even more true. “Seize the day” is how we should live, (I think David said something like that in Ps 118) not “I’ll save up and then do good stuff tomorrow.”
Of course, the question now is, “What do I do to serve Lord now?” I don’t necessarily believe the answer will cause me to travel to the wilds of Africa, but it should affect my day-to-day life. And that could be an interesting journey.
Comments
Micah Said: (July 19, 2006 04:56 PM)
So this has been on my mind a lot lately too. Partially because I feel like my finances are in horrid shape, I've started to take a look at the scriptures to see what my problem is.
C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of mulah in 'Mere Christianity' and is wisdom on the matter was pretty convicting. Basically we are to live below our means so that we can give as much as possible back to The Body. Which also means that that 10% tithe just a starting point. I should joyfully, worshipfully give as much as I can. That's not easy to do when you're holding part of yourself back.