Giving All You Can

Yesterday, when the kids and I went to the hairdresser, I parked next to Lexus. The owner must have been a dealer as the sticker was still in the window, $61,000. I can’t even fathom driving around in it. I would have to drive it, bring it home, park it in the driveway, and never ever move it . . .wait our yard has trees. I would need a bubble. All I thought was – such excess! In the hairdresser, the owner of the car wasn’t there for a haircut, but a tan. The scripture that is repeated in three of the gospels (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18: 25), “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” came to my mind. Do people hear this? Do they understand? Or is the pull of riches too great? We hear of golden toilets and stars that have more cars than they can drive in a week. But do you know that this is not just a plague of the super rich? We, the middle class, are just as guilty. Do we give our firsts? Or do we withhold and give what is leftover?

It is certainly difficult in this economic time to consider giving anything, let alone giving the best. But comparing our lifestyle to those of the biblical times, it should be easier for us. We are not living in huts. In fact, the square footage of a home has more than doubled since the 1950’s. We are not in a time or place of famine. Yes, our economy is tight and many of us are feeling a pinch that we have never felt before, but do we feel the pinch in our fat or against our ribs?

Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.” How do we reconcile eating out when people are starving in the world? How do we rest when our children carry cell phones and there are children in the world that don’t have a roof over their head? Can we give just a little more? What can we find in our life that we could forgo in order to make someone else’s better?

If you have ideas of how we can do this, please share them with us? What do you scrimp? How do you help?