Living and Giving

Last night was our last night of FPU, Financial Peace University, a class put on by Dave Ramsey.  It’s a 9 week long course that you typically take at a church where he teaches on DVD and then a coordinator leads the discussion afterwards.  We had a really nice final class with a potluck where different people brought food to share.

The final class was called ‘The Great Misunderstanding’ and was about giving.  Dave talked about how a lot of people simply don’t give at all and are missing out on joy as a result.  Giving is the best thing we can do with our money; not because God needs our money but because it helps us become more Christ-like.  God is the ultimate giver and gave His own Son for our sins; therefore to be more like Him we must learn to be givers as well.

He made it clear that no matter where you are in the baby steps (his method for financial peace) you should be giving at least a tithe.  It may seem counterintuitive to give while you’re still getting out of debt but again it’s just good for the soul.  He didn’t really touch on it but I’ve often associated giving with the idea of sacrifice.  I had a wonderful preacher growing up who used to talk about sacrificial giving; the idea that if it doesn’t hurt a little than you’re not doing it right.

I couldn’t agree more.  Is giving really giving if it’s not causing you to sacrifice?  For some people that means just getting started with giving.  For other people that means they need to increase from the tithe if that’s what they’ve been giving for a long time and no longer really feel it.

It’s incredibly humbling to be on the receiving end of so many people’s generosity.  People’s giving is what enables us to do what we want to do; try and start an entrepreneurship school in Cuba or Central America some day.  Right now we’re still in fundraising mode, but that can be a joy as well to see people give on top of what they might be already giving.

If you are one of our supporters, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  It means the world to my wife and I and we are consistently humbled by other’s generosity.  We try and give to others as well to try and pay it forward.  Without other people’s giving though, we would be nowhere.