On giving. {Where we've landed … for now.}

Oh friends, it feels so good to land. 

This last weekend I flew over to Bend for a women’s conference, and while it was wonderful to be there, and fun to fly over the beautiful cascade mountains, there’s just such a wonderful feeling about landing. Especially for a “J” like me, I like when things are settled, stable, at least for a bit.

This past year has been a flight of sorts, a bit of a free-fall with our house on the market and a serious re-positioning and re-considering of our finances, giving, and general life-priorities. I posted here, about our huge “aha!” moment of realizing that we could do so much good with money we were spending on our huge mortgage. So, we made a leap of faith and began giving 41%, living on just 18% of our income for awhile.

We made it a few months. While it’s true that we can’t “outgive God” it’s also true that at this point we just couldn’t make it on that small amount. Well, we could do it, but we wouldn’t be able to eat or drive.  (Small things.) So, it’s been a year-long process of “landing,” that is figuring out what God would have us give and live on in this season of our life, still dreaming of giving more, but being reasonable about our current situation.  I share all this because I’d like to just be honest through the process, perhaps it can be helpful, challenging, encouraging, or inspiring. I also wanted to make sure we weren’t mis-leading anyone by having you think we still gave 41% … so in the name of encouragement, honesty, and integrity:

Here’s where we’ve landed. 

Our dream would be to give half our income away. Not because we’d somehow be more spiritual but because I would just love to be able to DO that much with the money God’s given us. However, it’s just not realistic right now. So, baby steps.

Last year we were teaching Dutch about money: earning, saving, and giving. He earned $4 and we laid each of the four dollar bills out in front of him. As we interacted with him, we together decided that he would give $1, save $1, and use $2. He then used his $2 to buy a toy for Heidi and a toy for himself (since part of the money we use goes to providing for our family, not just ourselves.)  Jeff and I both were struck by the simplicity, and thought that for now we’d adopt the general rule for our family budget as well:

• Give 25%
• Save 25%
• Live on 50%

Using this as a model, we would get used to living on 50% and then (Lord willing) if we are someday able to own a house outright, we could reduce the “save” portion and increase the “give” portion.  Who knows what the future holds, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

• 58% goes to our church home.
• 18% goes to Un-reached people groups.
• 13% goes to missionaries in developing nations.
• 11% goes to child sponsorship.