By Michelle (Graceful, Faith in the Everyday)
Launching the Shop-Not Project felt good. When I embarked on my year-long hiatus from shopping last September, I felt noble…until a few months into it, that is, when I realized the flaw in my plan:
I was giving God the leftovers.
The Shop-Not Project works like this: My husband and I agree on a monthly personal cash allotment for each of us. I don’t spend any of that cash on clothes, jewelry, shoes, makeup or accessories – I don’t shop for any personal items for twelve months. At the end of each month, I take what’s left from my personal cash and tuck it into the envelope marked “Shop-Not Money.” At the end of the year, I donate what’s been saved to Compassion.
Sounds like the perfect plan, right? Like I said, noble and good. But read that second to last sentence again: At the end of each month, I take what’s left from my personal cash…
I take what’s leftover and give it to God.
What I give to God depends on my spending habits for the month – how many times I eat dinner out with friends, how many “necessary” items I purchase for home décor, how many low-fat grande mochas I sip. Some months I give most of my personal allotment to God; some months only $10 or $20. One month I gave nothing at all.
I didn’t realize the flaw in my plan until I read these verses from Exodus:
“All the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled craftsmen who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left their work and said to Moses: ‘The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.’” (Exodus 36:3-5)
The people brought more than enough to do the work God commanded.
“Why can’t we do this today?” I think to myself when I read those verses. “Why can’t we provide even enough, let alone more than enough?”
Why are there one billion people in the world living on less than $1 a day? *
Why do more than 26,500 children die every day due to preventable causes related to poverty?
Why do one billion people in the world live without access to clean, safe water?
There’s no getting around it: God commands us time and time again to care for the poor. Yet we don’t.
It’s easy for me to blame everyone else for global poverty. It’s easy to assume that I am doing my part, while “other people” slack off. It’s easy to assume that the problem is with everyone else, rather than with me.
But that would be wrong.
I realize now that I’ve had it all backwards. God shouldn’t get the leftovers.
God commands that more work be done. And that work begins with me.
“It charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.” (Jewish proverb)
What about you? Have you ever embarked on a charitable mission, only to find that you were going about it all backwards?
*Statistics from The Hole In Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns.
Michelle is a Christian wife and mother of two originally from Massachusetts now living in Nebraska. She is a part-time writer, editor and fundraiser for Nebraska PBS/NPR. Michelle loves to write about how her family illuminates God's presence in her everyday life, and on finding (and keeping) faith in the everyday. Michelle enjoys reading, running and writing. Be sure to go visit her blog, Graceful, Faith in the Everyday.