Tag: finance

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A prayer for finances: modeled on Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8

God, we praise you for the many ways you fulfill your promise to care for us and our needs. As Jesus put it, you care about us more than the sparrows, and you take care of their needs. Remind us of your steadfast faithfulness. Let that be a firm foundation that we can build our pursuit of financial faithfulness upon.

As you have kept your promises, so help us trust you. May the words you have promised your people through Jesus be ever true.

But will you really be served by our financial faithfulness? After all, you own it all. It is all yours. Whatever we find clever ways to attach monetary value to, it’s already yours. The parts, the labor, the ownership of business and governments. You are king over it all. Remind us that we don’t serve you because of your lack. But that in your riches, you provide us opportunity to love you, love others, and teach people the way of Jesus through how we manage our finances.

When we are wronged by those with more money and power than us, and we cry out to you for justice: hear our prayer. Do not let the wealth of the rich enable them to run roughshod over the good of your people, or of our community.

When we are faced with volatility; when the markets fall, or fail; when inflation runs rampant and makes every trip to the grocery store a painful reminder of how little control we have over our own fate; when jobs evaporate, housing prices escalate, and the financial system that gives so much security wobbles; when all that happens, remind us to call out to you. Hear from heaven and act to relieve suffering, to restore hope, and to anchor our hope in you rather than the markets.

When we pass through a season of personal conviction, of heightened awareness about how the financial networks of the world work so strongly in our favor at the expense of so many others; when the tinge of conscience strikes about child miners in the Congo who dig rare earth metals so we can have new, fancy cell phones; when our eyes are opened to the abundance, the excess that we live in, that encumbers so much of our lives and that we spend so much time and effort managing and stressing about; lead us into productive paths of repentance. Teach us the way to live in financial peace and justice which blesses all our neighbors as much as possible, not just the endless pursuit of more.

When we pass through a season of personal lack, where budgets don’t make it, where we’re constantly in the red, where the math never works out, and where financial ruin looks to be around every corner; when we cry out in prayer, hear us! If we have sinned, show us our sin. If we need to learn trust, help us to trust in you rather than our financial resources. Teach us to be content in all things, even when the pocketbook is stretched to the max.

When others hear and see your people living generously, prick their hearts about the idolatry of money. Help them long for freedom from slavery to possessions. Move in their hearts to cry out to you. And hear them!

When our financial faithfulness is lacking, redirect our path. In your mercy, please be gentle. Help us learn generous living in little pieces, bit by bit. But if learning freedom from financial idolatry requires loss, pain, heartache, then, Lord, we ask that you would help us to bear it. As we watch our financial security slip away, turn our hearts to you, the Lord who gives and takes away. As we watch our resources abound, turn our hearts to you, the Lord who blesses that we may be a blessing.

May your eyes be ever open to the needs of your servants. As you clothe the grass of the field with beautiful wildflowers, and as you feed the birds who don’t gather, or invest, so, too, care for your people. Meet the needs of the day. Guard us from the worries about tomorrow. Give us neither too little nor too much, so we don’t fall into temptations. Turn our hearts to walk in your riches.

And may we live in a hope that doesn’t come from wealth; a fear that doesn’t come from poverty; but in all things through joy in you. Our God and Provider.

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Generosity Expressions

Christmas time is a good time to talk about generosity. In fact, it is probably the best time of the year to talk about generosity since most people are in a more generous mood around this time of year—or are trying to coach themselves into feeling more generous. Perhaps it is nostalgia, perhaps people fear Ebeneezer Scrooge’s fate, or perhaps it is the time of year many set aside to experience joy in giving to others. Some are doubtlessly moved along on the binge-purge cycle of guilt and give generously to make space for a new load of stuff anticipated to arrive over the holiday season. Whatever the case may be, there is benefit in thinking a little about generosity and what it is.

In our recent trip through the book of 1 John, we came across this zinger of a verse:

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth (1 John 3.17-18 ESV)

This verse raises difficult questions fir a relatively wealthy society about wealth and poverty. A larger amount of people than at any other point in recorded history “have the world’s goods” and are not in obvious need (though let us never forget the many people around us who are in need, even if we don’t see it). Rather than tackle the whole, complicated topic of wealth, poverty, and generosity from a biblical perspective, I want to highlight some interesting work on generosity from Thrivent Financial, in partnership with the Barna the research group.

Generosity Expressions looks at the “how” instead of the “how much” of being generous

In the church world, people are often familiar with the idea of tithing. Tithing refers to the practice of giving 10% of your income, generally to church. It is rooted in the Old Testament Law given to the nation of Israel (though, in practice, it seems that ancient Israelites gave a good bit more than 10% in mandated offerings). Tithing is just one of many ways that people in churches talk about generosity through financial gifts. In fact, for many in the church context, the language of generosity is the language of finance.

Rather than talk just about giving money—which is certainly an important part of the picture of generosity—let’s think about generosity through the perspective of Thrivent Financial’s innovative Five Generosity Expressions.

Here they are:

five generosity expressions: monetary support, volunteering, hospitality, gifts, relational support

Thrivent developed these helpful five categories as a way to describe how people give and receive generosity.

Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Which generosity expression do I gravitate towards?
  2. Which one of these do I least associate as an expression of generosity?
  3. Which expression of generosity would I most like to receive?

Loving in deed and truth

A robust, biblical picture of generosity certainly involves what we do with our money. But these other facets of generosity are not to be discounted.

From a strictly biblical perspective, I would be inclined to say something like this. Monetary support and Gifts closely correlate to the biblical idea of “giving alms.” That is, people giving money to care for the needy, to provide opportunity for those without it, and so forth. The other categories of generosity which Thrivent develops could be wrapped into a larger category: living in community. They are the sorts of ways that people can and do bless each other in acts of service and relationship.

During Christmas time, maybe take a little time to consider what people you know that are operating at a low ebb and could benefit from a visit, or thank you, or an invitation out. And think about being generous in this way not just as something to “throw in” during the Christmas season. If you are like most people, throwing much more in this time of year may result in a mental breakdown.

Instead, think about how over the course of the coming year you can be generous with your time, presence, and emotional-relational support to some people who could use it.

The greatest gift

People often call Jesus “the greatest gift of all.” And that is true. As you consider being generous and different ways to be generous, consider that God’s generosity meets people in all areas of life, and in all the messy needs of life, not just the ones that we can write checks to help with

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Ruth, gleaning, and providing for the Future

1 in 4 twenty year olds will be disabled at some point

In the beginning of Ruth 2, we come across Ruth and Naomi, two intrepid widows joined by the bonds of love, yet dealing with a practical problem: they don’t have food and they don’t have money, so how are they going to survive in Bethlehem, where they recently returned? They have fallen in a gap and there is no financial plan for the future which covers them.

They are in this situation primarily because their husbands have died, they have been absent to a different country for a decade, and they don’t have clear access to what they need. The land that Naomi owns, which we will find out about only in chapter 4, has somehow fallen either into disuse or into the de facto control of someone else. If in disuse, it was not planted so they would get no food from it for an entire calendar year (they are at the beginning of harvest time now, and there would not be another harvest for a year). Or someone else from within the clan of Elimelech is using it, and they are loath to give back from the work they have put into it. Whatever the case, Naomi and Ruth don’t have food, don’t have a job, and don’t have a husband, so they fall back on the social safety net to stay alive.

Social Safety Nets

In today’s terms, the social safety net involves webs of governmental programs, non-government organizations, and charitable groups (like this church) who help through food, finances, provision of places to stay, training, etc., when someone is in a position like Naomi and Ruth. In our time, the logical place for Naomi and Ruth to begin would be to go and apply for food aid through some governmental program. But nothing like that existed in ancient Israel. What to do?

Ruth comes up with a plan falling back on a well-known and oft-practiced practice in their time and place: gleaning. Gleaning refers to going through a field which has been harvested and picking up the leftovers from the harvest. There is certainly food to be had, but it is long, hard work and the returns for the efforts are quite small compared to those returns from harvesting.

Gleaning Laws

The right for widows, orphans, and destitute to glean in ancient Israel is enshrined in the Law. Leviticus 19.9-10 is one of the many places which say the same thing:

9 “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. (NIV)

During harvest, the owners of the field were to leave a certain amount of the field—probably around the edges—standing. The gleaners could go through here. Also, in the harvesting process, anything that got dropped as the harvesters used their sickles or bound the stalks into bundles, was to be left for the gleaners. While a far cry from a social security check or a WIC card, these provisions accomplished the same basic outcome: those who had resources were to provide for those who didn’t.

All these commands rest on the same basic premise: God is the owner of the land. God gives land to the different tribes and families as their possessions, but he does not forfeit ownership of the land. He still reserves the right to tell them what they may and may not do with it. And one of the things that all owners of the land are required to do is to allow gleaning so that those like Ruth and Naomi who are socially destitute and don’t have land and don’t have the means to survive are still able to get food.

So that’s what Ruth is up to. She is falling back on the social safety net as a means to survive in her destitution.

Provision for the future

I want to take this as a jumping off point for a brief comment about planning for the future. Ruth and Naomi are in a pickle because the social means they had to plan for future security have failed. Their husbands died and they have no children. Thus, their only recourse is the social safety net of picking up stray heads of grain which happened to fall in a field.

There is nothing desirable about Ruth and Naomi’s position at this point. Imagine with me, for a minute, how Elimelech and Ruth’s former husband (Mahlon, as we find out in chp 4), would feel about what is going on. They certainly didn’t plan on dying, but if they could have prepared some way so that their widows did not have to suffer, I imagine they would have. Now, in an agrarian society there is not much you can do to prepare to provide for your loved ones in the event that you die. We are in a different situation today.

Financial preparation for the future

I just want to encourage you to think about those who are financially dependent on you and what ways, if any, you are planning to provide for them in the event you die or become unable to work in some other way.

Did you know, Social Security estimates that roughly one of every four people in their 20s today will experience some sort of physical disability limiting or removing their ability to work for a year or longer in the course of their lifetime? How many of us are financially prepared for losing a year of income? Are you prepared to provide for your loved ones in the event that you lose the ability to work or die? These questions are worth thinking about as we see this example of Ruth and Naomi scrambling to survive because that’s the only thing they’ve got.

Planning for future hardships

Making financial plans for the future is a sensible part of being good stewards of the money and resources God has given to us. In church, there’s often talk about what you do with 10% of your money and the importance of giving. And that’s all important and there needs to be a time to talk about that. But consider that God expects us to do wise and faithful things with 100% of the money and possessions that we have, not just 10%. And one wise principle to follow from scripture and seen from life is to plan on a loss of ability to work and possibly the loss of your life prematurely. What ways can you lessen the impact such an event will have on loved ones who are dependent upon you?

This calls for thinking about things like savings accounts, life insurance, disability insurance, and investments. Not everyone can afford such things, but if you have margin to do so, they provide a wise way to limit the likelihood that your family members will be falling into poverty and desperation in the even that you die or lose the ability to work. In fact, it is worth considering how to make margin in our lives to afford such tools.