Follow-up Post (needs/indulgences)

Thanks for all of the great comments.emails.phone calls about my "5 for 50 post."

OK..so since I know you read it, here's my question: Have you decided on any items to move from your "needs" list to your "indulgences" list?

We can all answer easy ones like excessive dining out.entertainment.cherry bon bons...but what else? Is anyone giving your life a good hard look to see where you might cut back so that you can give more? How will you practically apply to your life what you know to be true in your heart?

One item that came to my mind right away for me was bottled water. My mouth thinks our tap water is DIS.GUST.ING. I mean it can thoroughly corrode a faucet in seconds flat so to think of what it does to your innards creeps me out! But I know that I have no clue what disgusting water really is. So I bought some sturdy reusable bottles to use in place of the case of water we buy each week. In total that could save $15-20/month...which would mean a month of meals for 3-4 orphans through Five for 50 or a donation to Living Water International.

A small start? Yes....very small. But I trust that God can take that small thing and multiply it for good.

In my post "in love", I mentioned that I love young adults who live passionately for God. Case in point...my new friend Hannah. She is utterly adorable...funny, fashionable, and on fire for God. Hannah took part in the World Race 2007 and currently works for Children's Hopechest. With her permission, I wanted to share some wise words from her last email. Oh, how I wish that I would have loved God...and had this perspective...when I was Hannah's age!

Like you, I am grateful and excited about the way God changes hearts and shifts perspectives for us in our time of selfish obliviousness. Every now and then, He gives me a wake-up-call that jolts me back into the meaningful, eternal realm of life as opposed to the shallow, petty one. I know that makes sense to you, since you have experienced that shift from sponge holders to suffering children. Smiles. It’s easier to focus on the foxy cream high-heels I spotted last week rather than the overwhelming specifics of human pain and injustice that extends to the four corners of the earth, ya know? : ) But, naturally, thoughts of high-heels and sponge-holders are empty and soul-less and dully disturbing at the end of the day; we’re not meant to be mesmerized by that nonsense. So that’s when God comes in just in time with something more difficult but ultimately more joyful to the core of our truest selves, the part that was created in His image, the sacrificial and compassionate and intensely loving part that reflects Him. God is genius!

OK, so here are my two requests:
1. If you know of any young adults who may be interested in joining the World Race, direct them to this web site: click HERE.
2. Leave a comment to this post sharing your plans to put true indulgences in their proper place. What have you discovered to be the indulgences on your needs list, and how will you give 'em the boot?

Like I've said before, I'm not suggesting that we can't go out to eat or buy a new skirt or rent a movie, I'm simply hoping that we will be mindful that the money God has placed in our hands is for greater purposes than our own comfort, enjoyment, ease...and indulgences!

P.S...my baby is getting too big for his crib:

Five for 50

I stood at the kitchen sink and exclaimed to myself, "I need a new thing to hold my dish sponge." In my mind I pictured a shiny, sleek stainless steel holder that would hide the ugly look of worn sponges.

And then, as quickly as the first thought popped into my head, this conviction came, "No, I don't NEED a new holder. I don't even NEED an old holder." (I actually don't even have a holder, so this was a strange conversation to be having with myself!)

In America the line between necessity and luxury has been grossly blurred...and, if we are honest, we will agree that our list of "needs" actually includes a large number of indulgences.

Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that we have to meet our own needs before giving money to others...and yet so many of those "needs" are not truly necessary. Sure they make life more convenient or fun, and I'm not saying there isn't room for that in our lives, BUT how is it that we can so easily live lives of convenience and fun while the world around us starves, aches, and dies?

Lately my heart has been so heavy about this...heavy like it has fallen from my chest and is lodged somewhere around my knee. If you are a follower of Christ, how can you justify this? (Believe me, I am not asking you anything I'm not asking myself).

We tend to hear stories of hurting people and pray "Oh, Lord, help them"...but perhaps His help to them is through us. And I don't just mean that 10% tithe (which actually is an OT command for the Jews) I mean giving sacrificially. Living with less so others can live with more. Living with much less so that others can simply live.

From what I see in the NT there are 12 COMMANDS about giving and 14 COMMANDS about money. If we were all honest, very few of us would be able to say that we are truly obedient to them all. But if we were...how different would the world look?

God does bless us with nice things sometimes as a gift...and sometimes He gives us the OK to make the purchase ourselves. But I would venture to say that most of us, myself included, have bought things just because we wanted them, out of impulse, from wrong motives, etc.

I pray that God will work in all of us to allow HIM to bless us rather than trying so hard to bless ourselves....that He will give us discernment between luxuries and necessities...and that He will put His giving nature in our hearts so that when we use the money (His money) that He has placed in our hands, it will be to bless others first and ourselves second.

If you are looking for someone with whom to share the resources God has placed in your hands, consider FIVE FOR 50. I was directed to this site by Jamie from tinyrockstar, and it is a Hopechest campaign where they share that for $5 they can feed an orphan for a month (100 meals). There is a precious video on the site.