Tied to a Tree: Incrediable Generosity

Yesterday, I helped tie my assistant principal to a tree.  I bought several rolls of duct tape, wrapped the man in garbage bags to protect his clothes, and then made him stand against the tree while I collected money from kids who paid to wrap him in tape.  It was fantastic.  And, yes, I still have a job today.  You see, it was all in fun and for a good cause.  My AP, who deserves the “Principal of the Month” award for his willingness to endure public humiliation, had volunteered to accept this punishment if we could get the student body to raise a certain amount of money towards our canned food drive.  The money we collected yesterday also went towards the cause.  The food we buy will be donated to a local food bank and will help feed the needy over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

My students knew about the food drive better than anyone one at school as I have been in charge of this six week event.  Whenever they finished working on an assignment, I often had a duty waiting – cut up flyers to be distributed at the football game, count the money collected during lunch, unload cardboard boxes that had been delivered for collection, ect.  They have been great sports about the whole process and awesome helpers.  When I came in to their class after lunch holding the jar of money we had collected from tying our principal to the tree, they were as excited as I was.  One of the kids agreed to count the money while listening to my short review of the previous day’s lesson, and as I walked up the aisle with the jar to give it to him, another kid tried to stick a dollar in it.  I was so surprised (primarily by the fact that this 13 year old kid was trying to put money in and not take money out of an overflowing jar), and I stopped him.  “You know you don’t get anything for putting money in at this point, right?” I asked wondering if he thought putting in a dollar would allow him to go back outside to add more tape to our poor AP.  “Yeah,” he replied with a look of confusion.  “So why are you putting in money?” I responded.  “I just want to help,” was his answer.  I was floored.  I have never seen high school kids who wanted to help just because, and I couldn’t help praising him.  As soon as he donated, a chain reaction started and these kids started pulling money from book bags and pocketbooks and continued to throw in their own change.  It was amazing.

 

Last night, as I lay awake in bed (ironically due to the stress of coordinating said food drive WHILE organizing National Honor Society inductions), I thought about my precious students donating to a good cause out of a sincere desire to help the poor and needy in our community.  I wondered at their generosity, and I couldn’t help but imagine that the ease with which they were giving was related, even in part, to the fact that the money was not their own.  You see, in this class, I’d guess that very few (if any) students work to make money for their families.  I’m not saying that they all come from wealthy homes, but it does seem like a group of kids who mostly have a sense of security that their needs will be met.  They trust that their parents will provide for them, and they are likely not being asked to contribute to the household finances.  I’d also make the guess that for most of them, the money they have comes directly from their parents in the form of an allowance.  By contrast, I have other students who don’t know who will provide for their needs, who work to help keep a roof over their own heads, and who would have a much harder time giving a dollar to help others knowing that it could just as easily provide for their own needs.  They lack a sense of security that makes it easy for them to be generous.

 

Thinking about the two types of givers, made me question what type of giver I am.  Andy and I are fortunate to both have jobs and earn enough money to live the lifestyle we want.  We certainly aren’t wealthy, but we are secure.  However, as an adult, I also know that I am responsible for meeting my own needs.  When I give, I often consider whether I will need the money I’m giving or if I can handle living without it.  I think of it in terms of my money – after all, put in 50+ hours of work a week to earn it, right?  Wrong. 

 

It is God’s Money

Psalms 26:1 – “The earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord.” 

“My” money is on this earth, and that makes it belong to God.  It is his money.  He helped me get the job and gave me the abilities to keep it. He deemed me worthy of being a steward of what belongs only to him.  Just as my students earn their money from an allowance given by their parents, my Father in heaven provides financially for me.

 

God Will Meet My Needs

1 Philipiaans 4:19 – “And my God will meet all you needs according to his glorious riches in Christ.”

Just as my students feel secure that their parents will meet their needs, I should feel confident that my Father will meet my needs.  I shouldn’t be afraid to give generously because I can trust that he will provide for me.  I don’t say that to mean that I shouldn’t give in wisdom.  My Bible study leader pointed out this week that giving generously doesn’t mean being unwise.  God gave us money so we could help other people, but he also gave us money as a way to provide for our needs.  I do believe all that, but my weakness with generosity is wanting to save everything “just in case.”  I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t give because I want to live luxuriously or spend, spend, spend.  I want to save all our “extra” in case Andy loses his job or in case we have a medical emergency or in case our 10 year old cars break down.  Lately, I’m feeling convicted that instead of being so desperate to save all our surplus, Andy and I should prayerfully designate funds for regular giving above our tithe.  In doing so, we will demonstrate trust that God will provide for our “just in case” episodes if and when our emergency fund doesn’t.

 

Giving is Expected

James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

My church is going through a series on social justice right now that is outstanding and eye opening. You should check it out here.  The series, which is also discussed in our small groups, has shown me that verses about giving – especially to the poor and needy – are ALL OVER the Bible.  What struck me about the verses is that they are not conditional.  It doesn’t seem to matter to God why people are poor and needy just that they are, and because they are, we who have more should provide for them.  He calls our generosity and willingness to provide pure and faultless religion.  The students in my room likely gave from hearts that had been conditioned to give.  Their parents probably raised them to care for the needy in our community, and through the IB program, we have talked a lot about serving where we are needed.  Like them, I have a Father who has “raised” me to give.  As a Christian, adopted into his household by faith, I should have a heart that reflects his heart, and his heart is made to care for those in need (Psalm 10:16-18).

 

Next Steps

It isn’t often that I feel able to end a blog with “next steps.”  So many times when I write, I’m just then learning the concept I illustrate.  God helps me process what he is saying to me while I write.  However, the topic of generosity is one that Andy and I have been mulling over for a few months now, and we have some “next steps” designated for ourselves.  I’m going to include them just in case they could help you.

 

Step 1: Tithe. 

A tithe is typically considered a 10% of our income (see Numbers 18:26, Genesis 28:22, Hebrews 7:2-6).  It is given to support the local church (in Biblical times it was used to provide for the priests).  If you are not tithing, you are robbing God of what belongs to him (see Malachi 3:8-12). 

 

Step 2: Trust God in your giving.

I love the verses listed above in Malachi because they call us to trust God to the point of testing him.  He tell us that if we will trust him with our tithe (even if we think we can’t afford it), he will lavish blessings upon us.  Last month, our pastor indicated that it is the only part of the Bible where God challenges us to test him.  He is serious about our giving to him what already belongs to him. 

 

Step 3: Use wisdom.

From my previous posts, you know I value wisdom.  I don’t think you should make any decisions without being prayerful and wise.  Part of giving wisely is being aware and organized with your own finances.  Andy and I keep a detailed budget to track our spending and record our expenses.  When we have talked about giving above our tithe, we usually have had the conversation with our budget in front of us.  We know we can and should give above our tithe, but we don’t think it wise to give more than we make, for example, or designate giving to the point that we can’t buy groceries or can’t pay rent.

 

Step 4: Prayerfully designate an amount and place to give.

For us, we have decided that our next step after consulting our budget and praying together will be to seek to follow the Lord with an amount of money we’d like to give above our tithe each month and where that money should go.  This is where some knowledge of yourself could come in handy.  Andy and I are routine, ordered people.  We will be more consistent in our giving if we give on a regular basis to organizations or people we have already prayed about and felt led to help.  Maybe you are more spontaneous and you want to be free to help the person you see on the side of the street or the coworker whose husband just his job.  In that case, it may be wise for you to organize a fund to which you contribute each month and when you decide to give, you will be able to access that fund.  Maybe your monthly income is sporadic.  If that is you, designating a monthly amount may not be wise, but designating places you’d like to give when you have extra income could be helpful.

 

Step 5: Be cheerful and have fun!

I love the verse that says, “God loves a cheerful giver.”  The kids in my classroom yesterday and I had so much fun contributing to the jar of money that would be used to buy canned food items, and we’ve had an equally good time watching the cans gradually take over my classroom.  It is fun to imagine how those items will bring joy to so many families over the holidays.  When you give, give with a good attitude as that shows just as much about your relationship with Jesus as the money you give.  And you never know, one day your generosity might allow you to tie your boss to a tree and what could be more fun than that!

Like Minded

I always crack up when I hear girls say, “I refuse to be friends with women because they are too much drama.  All my friends are guys.”  I love this little quip because it assumes that this particular woman thinks she is different than all the other women in the world.  She thinks other women are emotional and passionate and opinionated, but she herself is calm, coolheaded, collected and logical.  My guess is that she just hasn’t been able to figure out how to do healthy relationships with other women – how to keep herself calm, coolheaded, logical, and collected when she is with them.  Instead of figuring out healthy relationships, she’d rather just surround herself with members of the opposite sex, which is a fair outlet when she is in high school or college but becomes problematic when she enters the stage of life where women congregate in the kitchen and men are outside by the grill.  Having lots of close girlfriends myself (and having grown up with two brothers and no sisters), I understand how difficult it is to navigate the waters of female relationships – and honestly, I think I have even more insight into the difficulty as I watch my husband try to understand and be friends with me!

 

Women are a complicated breed. Our emotions are our opinions.  What we think is so closely connected to what we feel that there is no separating it.  In my life, having my feelings and emotions tied so closely to my opinions makes it very difficult for me to put my thoughts into perspective.  Everything I think seems much more important than it actually is because I have an emotion tied to the decision.  For example, I think my house should be clean.  This is an opinion.  But it is also an opinion that is wrapped up in a lot of emotion.  If my house is clean, I feel calm and in control and happy.  I feel like a respectable, responsible person when I have a clean house.  If my house is cluttered or dirty, I feel like my whole life is out of control.  I feel like a big fat failure.  I feel irresponsible and off center.  Before I know it, I’m standing in a dirty house and having an emotional breakdown, and my husband is asking, “This is about the house?!”  In fact, if I have any male readers, at this point you are saying to yourself, “This girl is crazy!”  And my female readers are saying, “I know EXACTLY what you’re saying!” 

 

I know you are wondering about how all of this is related to the Bible, but I promise it is.  You see, I came across these two verses today in Philippians 4:2-3, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.  Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel.”  I’ve read the Bible through a couple of times, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Philippians.  I bet I’ve read those verses dozens of times, and I always just skim right over them.  But today, they stood out to me.  Here Paul is asking two women to be of the same mind.  Obviously these are women who both loved the Lord and had served the Lord alongside Paul, but now they had had a falling out.  They didn’t share the same mind.  There was some drama going on.  It is probably easy to be critical of these women, but what woman doesn’t know what it is like to vehemently disagree with another person?  What woman has not experienced that passionate feeling that their opinion was right, and if they had to change it, their world might change?  Kind of like my feelings in my previous post, right?  Whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, every woman has been in a place where a disagreement with another woman was a big deal because of every emotion that was tied up in those differing points of view.  Feelings had probably been hurt and giving in would not only mean changing her opinion it would also mean saying that what the other person had done or said to her was ok.  See what I mean?  Emotions all tied up in the logic.

 

Added to the mix is that it doesn’t seem that Paul thinks either of the women are clearly in the wrong.  He pleads with both of them equally.  He asks the church to support both women.  He doesn’t mention that one has walked away from the faith and should be called back.  What do you think these women disagreed about?  Whether to send their kids to public or private school?  Whether to vote for Obama or Romney?  Whether it was ok to drink caffeine while being pregnant?  Whether women should work outside the home?  Whether it was ok to spank their kids?  Whatever it was, it probably felt like a really big deal, and goodness knows, we’ve all been there. 

 

I looked up “like mind” in the Greek dictionary, and the Greek translation includes the words wisdom, modesty, and harmony.  It implies agreement or a wisdom to know when to keep your opinions to yourself (or at least that is my interpretation!).  I think what Paul was trying to tell these women – and the entire church (notice verses 2:1-4) – was that their shared belief in Christ was more important than any differing opinions they might have, and that they should keep their similarities in focus when having disagreements. 

 

Philippians 3:15-16 says, “All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things.  And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”  In this scripture, Paul is allowing for disagreements.  In my group of friends, one place where we all seriously disagree with one another is on how we spend and save money.  We are all responsible with our money, but we all have different ways of structuring our budgets.  Some of us really value quality time with our loved ones, so we put money into plane tickets and trips.  Some of us value sports, so we put money into season tickets and trips to see games.  Some of us value saving for the future so that our money can be used later to send our kids to college or buy a bigger house.  There have been points in our friendship when the way we spend our money has caused stress and discord, but ultimately we were able to realize that we were all right.  We all tithe, we all give, and we all use our money as our convictions lead.  We all have a desire to honor God with how we spend our money and our time, and that belief in the Lord and bringing him glory should trump our differing opinions on something as small as how we spend our money. 

 

So back to those girls who just can’t do friendships with other girls, I think some wisdom might be needed.  First, I’d tell them to pick friends with whom they already share a core belief in Jesus Christ.  I’m a big huge fan of being friends with non Christians, but the people in my inner circle are people with whom I share faith.  It is hard to keep opinions in perspective if there is nothing to give us a united viewpoint.  In Christian relationships, Jesus is the lens through which we should see everything – including our disagreements.  When we “live up to what we have already attained” we are showing the world that God is big enough to cover all our differences, that through him, we are united in love.  Secondly, I’d tell them to do their part to remember that no matter how passionately they believe what they believe and no matter how vehemently their girlfriend believes the opposite, it isn’t worth arguing about, and it certainly isn’t worth losing a friendship over.  If we remember that we both serve and love the same Lord, we will see that our similarities more than out weigh our differences, and the emotional love for our Savior that we share will outshine all the other nagging feelings we have when we look solely at our disagreement.