On an almost daily basis there’s a sound that’s all too familiar to me, and I’m sure you’ve all heard it too – the sound of people sifting through their pockets and wallets collecting their change for their offering at Mass. There’s something about this specific sound that’s disturbing, although it probably shouldn’t be. I grew up in a family where we had more than we needed and my parents were quick to help or give, knowing that everything comes from God and will eventually go back to Him, and so generosity seemed to always come easy to them. This included how they easily gave whatever they could to my brother and I, and extended this same value to their weekly tithing at church, and then some.
Finances are always a touchy subject and I believe that I’m not the model for how to budget properly, give often, or help generously. I also understand that people can look at my life from the outside and think, “Easy for you to say because you don’t have many financial difficulties so you shouldn’t have an opinion on how people spend their money because you don’t know how hard it can be.” However, I still do believe that we can all give more, and that the tighter we hold on to the little we have the more we allow money to control our lives.
Consider that we have 24 hours in one day. How often do we use x amount of hours for work, then x amount of hours for sleep, x amount of hours for pleasure, x amount of hours for “other”, then what are we left with? Leftovers. And very often it’s those leftovers that we give to God. If we value our time with God and know the kind of model we should follow with how generous we are with our time, then why should it be any different with how generous we are with our money?
Maybe we, again with myself included, can consider arranging all our other (yet still highly important) finances based on the 90% we have AFTER tithing, or maybe even less than that if feasible. We all give according to our blessings and our own individual situations, so it’s definitely all relative, but let’s try not to ruffle through our change and give God just what we have leftover. If we are asked to give it all, let us give it willingly, and also give our leftovers if even then that’s all we have left.
You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him; because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. [Deuteronomy 15:10]