Our Lady of the Perpetual Shakedown

As promised, the stewardship update:

If I ever make it to heave, I promise it won't be because of any merit of my own or because of my blog titles, (more on that in the second update to this stewardship post). 

I had a conversation with a young teen who promised that all her problems would be solved and she would be who she was meant to be if only she had loads of cash. 

I've come to regard money with a bit of contempt. I really don't like it. Yes, it's nice the things it can buy, the comforting things it brings but I dread, really dread being responsible for it. It is a burden. I have to spend time making sure that I am doing what I am suppose to do with it. I have to balance being attached enough to manage it and detached enough to disperse it - not easy. 

Follow that with the temptation to purchase things for their own sake and then a further temptation to be drawn into the things it does buy and purchasing protection plans to protect our terribly important crap. 

The more $$ you have, the better you are able to drag yourself out of debt but also the greater the temptation to ponder it, to spend in contemplation of what to spend it on, how to appropriate it, to be attached to it, and to consider which charities to support and in what proportion. Money can buy and make good things happen, but it is not a good.

The truth is that the money I do have is not mine, it's been entrusted to me and as such I need to determine in what fashion I am suppose to allocate it and to be completely detached from it. "To whom much is given, much more will be demanded"

Every time I look at my local taxes on top of federal and state taxes of this great state in which I reside, I consider 2% "is a lot" but when I also examine the 10% to God that number looks excessively excessive. How many of us actually give 10%? Looking at the stats I'd say not that many of us even give a measly 2%. It hurts to give that much when bills, taxes, debt,  cost of living and children to care for are staring you in the face. It hurts even more when we are attached to it. 

There is a particular mindset I am trying to adopt. When I go on vacation I don't count the cost. I spend it like I have it because what's the sense of having a vacation when you're stressed about finances? Similarly when I give financially to the development of God's kingdom, I don't stress the cost. He has already allotted a certain amount of our finances for himself and it's my job to ensure it gets to where he needs it. That I think is the burdensome part, getting it to where he needs it. So many times many of us consider the burden to be giving in the first place. That's not the burden, that is the joyful part.