Filling in My Blank is a story. I don’t know where it will end, but you can catch up by reading the first, second, and third installments. Enjoy!
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So by now, so many things had already lined up. Realizing that fall was fast-approaching, I finally started in on The Hole in our Gospel. I wrote a few posts about it (Because They’re All God’s Kids) and (The Tipping Point). It was, without a doubt, what God used as my tipping point. Here is what I wrote on Saturday, September 18th: after finishing the book:
Tonight at church we watched a video, and in the background was Brooke Fraser’s song about Rwanda, “Now that I have seen, I am responsible.” And here is the cool thing about God–He only reveals to us what we can handle, and He only calls us to what we’re capable of doing. He doesn’t ask us to give what we don’t have, just what we have. He doesn’t call us to change the world, He just calls us to obey when we hear His voice. Just to obey when we hear His voice.
So we heard His voice.
All week, for whatever reason, Jeff and I just felt discouraged. The kids were both sick, Jeff was swamped with work to do, I had a 3-day migraine that just wouldn’t leave me alone–it was just one of those weeks. Friday came and it rained, so Jeff and Dutch spent the afternoon playing trains, and I ignored the dirty house and curled up with The Hole in our Gospel. Well, thankfully I have a wonderful husband who took the initiative to bathe our children and put them to bed, because I didn’t put it down until 8pm that night when I read the final page. Jeff came into our room. “Have you been crying?” He asked. “Of course I have,” I responded. I held up the book, closed my eyes and shook my head. Of course I had been crying. How can we read the horrors of poverty, disease, exploitation, and not weep? I know you all have been there. When the reality of the sorrow in this world is revealed, for what it really is, all we can do sometimes is grieve.
“What are we doing?”
I took some time to pray and think and Jeff went ahead (he wasn’t quite finished with the book), and read some more. Then we met back up to talk about what we would do.
Now that we have seen we are responsible.
Here’s what shook me. Really shook me. I’ve always thought of myself as a faithful giver. I mean, I’ve been tithing since I was old enough to hold a quarter in my hand (thanks to my parents who put the quarter there!). We do sponsor children, we do support missionaries, we do make special gifts for different causes. But what Richard Stearns points out from Scripture, from David’s example and the widow’s two mites, is that it doesn’t matter how much we give, what matters is what it costs. What matters is our faith.
Our current giving costs us nothing. The bottom line is our current giving does not require us to live by faith. Now, please hear me that God calls all of us to different things. This is why we CANNOT COMPARE our giving with someone else’s. All we can do is look at ourselves and ask, Does my current giving cost me anything? Does my current giving require me to life by faith? And, it’s worth noting, that this is true of all giving–our time, our talents, and our treasure. It’s so much bigger than money, but where our treasure is there our heart will be too.
So here I am, sitting in bed, praying, thinking of our budget and our life and I just don’t know what to do. I’ve laid everything out before the Lord and basically said, “Take it, whatever you want, show us what needs to go. We’ll move to Zambia, we’ll sell our house, we’ll sell a car. Just show us your will.” And very clearly I feel we are right where God wants us to be. We know He’s called us to West Linn. We know He’s called us to Willamette Christian Church. I feel like He gave us our specific house in our specific neighborhood, in the middle of this specific community. We love it here. Together we even clearly felt it wise to keep our cars–as they are useful and paid for and great for the work that God wants us to do here. Ok, so, we’re talking and I just keep saying how hard it is to live within this specific culture that God has called us to, without it costing so much that there’s nothing left to give! We can’t just not have utilities and not buy car insurance–that’s just life in the United States!
And I kept thinking what’s the biggest expense/priority in our life? By a landslide it’s our house. In comparison to the rest of our spending, we spend a large portion on our house. More than any other single item. In fact, it’s 41% of our take home pay (30% of our gross income). So we’re sitting there and in a moment of silence Jeff says, “What if we determined to give away the same amount we spend on our home? You know, if giving was, even by a penny, the single largest portion of our income.” For a moment I felt like everything stood still. Then I laughed, “Yeah, that would cost us! That would require faith. We’d basically be living on less than 18% of one single income.” I calculated the number and laughed some more. It was impossible. Then I shrugged my shoulders, “Well we can work toward it. That really would be cool.” Jeff rolled over and went to sleep.
Of course I could not sleep. Of course I couldn’t get Jeff’s words out of my head. Of course I could not get Scripture out of my head, images of children out of my head, stories of people who had given up everything they owned to help people in the name of Christ–of course none of that would get out of my head! I flipped on the light and started writing numbers. To my amazement I realized that if we only spent on life’s absolute essentials–food, gas (significantly limited amount), insurance, utilities (with some conservation), prescriptions and co-pays, and Jeff’s monthly haircut (please do not laugh, this is a necessity if you know how hard it is to cut his hair), then, to my astonishment, it actually was possible. It would require some cost, and certainly some faith, but I got that unmistakable feeling when you know God is up to something that will change your life. Then, I crunched a few numbers to see what we could actually do with that money. If we continued to give the exact same amount to our local church, without taking a dime away from the work God’s doing there, we’d be able to (are you ready?), sponsor THIRTY-FIVE children. THIRTY FIVE!!! Through some programs, that’s two whole orphanages! I about fell out of bed. Now I don’t know for sure if that’s how God’s leading us, and I know it’s not just about numbers, but that helped me to understand the amazing potential! That is so exciting to me! Seeing faces–real individual lives made in the image of God, helped me get this all in perspective.
So, then I wrote out a list of the things that didn’t make the cut–savings, house repairs, vacations, retirement, car repairs. Obviously these things are truly wise and we would consider necessary expenditures. However, this is so cool. IF we gave in this way, our taxable income would be so low that we would get a sizable tax refund each year. We could simply commit to tucking that away for retirement and use for the year’s house repairs, car repairs, emergencies, etc. Thankfully we already have a Dave Ramsey-inspired emergency savings account, so it’s not as if we were being foolish, failing to have a back-up plan in case of emergency. I don’t believe that’s faith as much as poor planning.
But here is where the story gets fun because it gets personal. We have such a personal God! The three items I wrote down with question marks were–kids clothes (I certainly don’t need clothes but my kids actually grow out of theirs), toys (yes, I still want my children to have fun things to play with!), and learning/educational materials/books for the kids. Like any mom, I didn’t want my children to go without. Bottom line? God loves our children more than we do, right? Well…
So today we talk about this plan, and though we’re 99% sure we want to do it, we commit to pray about it. We’d start on October 15th, so we have a few weeks to really pray and find out for sure God’s will in this. So today there’s a clean-up day scheduled at church so Jeff goes to that. Just as he’s leaving, some people pull in from church and say, “Hey! We have something for you.” They hand him a big bin FULL of kids toy Geotrax (train set), and another FULL of hot wheels cars, trucks, race ramps. Jeff and I are just laughing, “Um…there’s Christmas!” Guess I don’t have to worry about toys for my kids. God knows their favorite kind!
Then, I got to church tonight, and as I’m leaving a friend says, “Hey, can you wait? I have something for you.” So I follow her out to the car and she hands me 2 HUGE boxes full of hand-me-down girl clothes from her daughter who is a year older than Heidi. We’re talking a ton of clothes. So much that I had to call a friend and ask if she wanted to take half because there’s more than I can use. Guess I don’t have to worry about clothes for my kids. 🙂 Then, this same girl (who is very generous by the way) hands me a brand new set of books, shrink wrapped, and she says that they are the reading curriculum that her son uses at his Montessori school. She knew I was “homeschooling” for preschool and bought me a set for Dutch. WHAT?!! Um, I guess I don’t have to worry about books and educational materials for my kids. God knows the best kind out there.
So that was tonight. I am now sitting in bed, overwhelmed at God’s goodness. Tonight at church Joel preached the good news of the Gospel:
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:1-10)
God. Has. Been. So. Good. God’s grace is astounding. We who were dead in our transgressions He has made alive. He has saved us by grace, and that not of ourselves. We have done nothing to do deserve His kindness, but He lavishes it on us be His kindness. And He we are His, created for good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. That is the good news! We are loved beyond comprehension. And God has marvelous things in store for us.
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