Giving

Last night I was fortunate to get together with Chuck. I met Chuck through the ESL program I helped out with this past year. He and his wife ran the program I helped out with. Getting to know Chuck and Sue over the past year has been a blessing. They invited our group of 6-10 leaders over to their house for a meal, which I made sure to never miss since they are AMAZING hosts, almost monthly. The passion for people and desire to "not go quietly into the night" are two of the things I enjoy most about those two. Chuck and Sue are in their 60's and have run a small construction company together for years. They seem to be pretty well off and unlike most of their generational counter parts they choose not to spend all of their evenings closed off in their home or just hanging out with their friends. They put a lot of time and effort into running a once a week evening ESL class for refuges who are not able to make the day-time classes offered buy the Lutheran Services organization. Anyways Chuck and I had talked about getting together for coffee for a few months now and until last night had been unable to work it out. So last night we spent a few hours in conversation and one of the things we started talking about was giving. It started with Chuck telling me a story... He said one time a few years back he decided it was time upgrade his mower even though his current one was still working. So he asked one of his employees if he would like his mower, his employee said sure. A few weeks later he was with two of his employees and one brought up to the other that he still owed him fifty dollars. Chuck asked why, the one employee said he sold the mower Chuck gave him to the other employee. My first reaction was a thought about the parable of the unforgiving servant. Then Chuck made sort of a can-you-believe look and then said something to the effect of so I said to the employee "you can't sell that mower, I gave it to you". The employee quickly retorted "Yes I can, you GAVE it to me. So I can do whatever I want with it". I continued to think about the parable and was thinking that it was a pretty crappy thing to do. Then surprisingly he started defending the employee. He said the employee was right. Chuck gave it to him and if he was honest their shouldn't be any considerations attached. Which got me thinking about the attitude we give with and then Chuck said "We are called to give to the church freely, we are not called to direct". Basically when we give with an attitude of concern for how wisely our donation is being used or what it is going towards we are trying to put considerations on our giving or direct our giving. This is something I have been specifically challenged with in regards to support specific ministry staff on a monthly basis and finding myself thinking "Wait a second, when they are going on that vacation or buying xyz.... that is nicer/better/cooler than whatever I have. Should I be supporting them?" Thought this was a good challenge for my attitude in giving.