Living in the Dust Bowl

ABANDONING THE FIELDS OF GENEROSITY

You and I live in a dust bowl. Every day, we brace ourselves for the impending devastation that could sweep across the financial landscape and wipe out our stores of seed. In our world, the “what ifs” manifest themselves in circumstances such as diminishing retirement accounts, unexpected expenses, and worldwide economic turmoil. We stuff wet rags around the cracks in our portfolios and hope for the best.

In the midst of it all, we have a crop to produce—a spiritual crop. We have a limited supply of financial seed for sowing in God’s kingdom. Perhaps you once dreamed of sowing fertile fields of generosity. But reality has taught you to be more cautious. What if I give away too much? What if there’s not enough left for me? What if . . . ?

We’re not greedy, but under the mounting weight of uncertainty, it’s easy to slowly become irrational about our possessions. We lose sight of who really owns them. We fail to grasp how we should be sowing them for God’s kingdom. And we get confused about what we should really fear regarding our finances in this life—like facing eternity having sown only a few handfuls of our personal wealth for God’s kingdom.

We’re not alone. Millions of Christians around the world are frozen in their financial tracks by this anxiety. In all likelihood, they mean to be more generous. But somewhere along the way, uncertainty creeps in and they settle for the status quo: a watered-down version of what they could be sowing for God’s kingdom—if it weren’t for their fears.

In the United States, just one third to one half of all church members gives any financial support to their churches.  Any.  And of the people who do give something, only 3 to 5 percent give a tenth of their incomes.

Meanwhile, the wealth accumulated by churchgoing people has reached record levels. And despite unprecedented opportunities for global ministry, American Christians give proportionately less today to the church than we did during the Great Depression.

Even those who do give are often tentative and sheepish about it. They respond when the offering plate is passed or when the annual pledge cards are due. But there’s not exactly a burning passion to leverage everything within their grasp to achieve God-sized missions. Too often, Christians take a posture that’s reactive rather than proactive. People give reluctantly or to assuage their guilt.

For the most part, the church has responded by simply increasing the pressure on its members. Church leaders create clever fundraising campaigns, send out elaborate mailers, put big thermometers in front of the sanctuaries, and lock the doors until the goal is met. But beneath all this scrambling for market share, I think there’s a root problem the church has mostly missed.

For many Christians, the problem isn’t that the church lacks brand awareness. Nor is the problem that Christians are too greedy to give. For a lot of people, I think the lack of generosity among Christians can be attributed to plain old fear.

AFRAID TO SOW

Fear has always been one of the principal enemies of a growing faith. It has a way of clouding our thinking and obscuring the facts. You may know precisely how God would like you to handle your finances, but fear has the potential to freeze you in your tracks or send you down another path.

It’s important to realize that fear and faith often go hand in hand. By nature, when you pursue a growing faith you increase your exposure to potential fears. Actually, fear and faith live parallel lives. Uncertainty is an essential ingredient for both. Without the element of the unknown, there could be no faith. It’s in that moment of faith that we learn to rely less on what is seen and more on what is unseen. Faith bridges the gap. But it’s also in that moment that we are most vulnerable to fear. Many Christians know how they’d like to give, but fear kicks in before they can bridge the gap with faith.

It’s no accident that the Bible addresses this condition head-on. There’s no drought when it comes to verses designed to help us let go of our fears and embrace our God-given calling to be generous stewards rather than fearful owners. In Matthew 6:33, Jesus assures us that when we seek His kingdom first with our seed, we need not fear being wiped out:

 . . . He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. (NLT)

God’s nature is to replenish the stores of those who strive to be faithful conduits for His kingdom work. When you participate with God in His mission, you can trust Him to reward you abundantly for every good deed. When you begin to view your wealth from God’s perspective, you’ll see that the thing to fear isn’t giving away too much, but sowing too little.

Excerpt from Fields of Gold by Andy Stanley (Tyndale House Publishers 2004)