After the dinner he took some time to talk to me (I knew him a little, but we had never really talked before), and he asked if I understood everything he was talking about. After that, Josh invited me to join his ministry team to help fulfill the great commission. When he asked me to join his team, he said that I could give x amount of $$/mo while he was doing ministry abroad. This was the first time I can ever remember being asked to support someone other than seeing a collection basket go around at church. This was the first time I was ever challenged to think about investing my finances in eternal things. This was the first time that I had ever even realized that God wanted me to use my money for missions just like anything else. I was taken aback when Josh asked me that question but I played it cool with a simple "Well, Hey Josh... that sounds really cool - I will pray about it."...
... Instead of praying, I abruptly went to look my checking account to see what existed (or didn't exist for that matter). At the time, I was paying for all my school and my parents were not able to help me. After thoroughly thinking about it for 5 minutes, I made the decision: I could not have what I needed to support Josh's ministry.
Before I got a chance to hear back from Josh (He said he'd call me a couple days later), I asked one of the guys I was living with if he was going to give to Josh's ministry. He replied the he would even though he wasn't making a lot -- apparently this is typical in the college world, who knew? I said the same thing, I mentioned that I wasn't making much and had to pay for school. But then, this roommate of mine explained something I had never heard before. He said "Even though you don't think you have enough money, I think that you will find when you sincerely trust God with your finances that you will not come up lacking what you need."
I pondered on this for the following hours that evening and decided that I wanted to give an amount to Josh's ministry each month. I couldn't decide though how much... if I did $10/mo, I felt like I wasn't really trusting God with my finances. $50 a month seemed ridiculously high for me as a college student and I knew I couldn't feel right doing that. I wanted to be a good "steward" of my finances... After praying about it and waking up the next morning.. I found the happy medium and decided on $35/mo. Josh called that night and I told him my decision. This was when I first discovered the adventure of giving. From that day on, I have absolutely been blessed to learn that I enjoy blessing others, as well as being hospitable. God has shown me that he knows more about my finances than I did, even as a college student who felt like he had nothing to offer... who knew? So even though my decision 2 nights before was "I could not have what I needed to support Josh's ministry". I quickly came to learn that "God had what I needed and enough more than that to use me to support Josh's ministry".
God is greater than our limited resources; He is greater than our limited philosophies and sciences; He is greater than our biggest sin.
God is greater than...
Additional Resource: How You Can Experience the Adventure of Giving or Listen Here
...our finite fears. It really is amazing how quickly forget that the few bucks in our bank account is chump change compared to God's endless resources. The more we give, the more God provides. It's SUCH a backwards concept but there's no way you can understand the satisfaction of giving sacrificially until you actually do it! Great post, Dave. Even for those of us who really DO just have a few bucks in our pocket, it's a great reminder to give like it's goin out of style...
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