Giving

Several different blog posts I've read and conversations I've had lately have been reminding me of the pathetic truth that the average giving of evangelical Christians to church/charities is 2% or less of their income. I may not have that statistic exactly right, but it is nowhere near the 10% tithe talked about in the Bible. When I read things like that it just blows my mind because I can't imagine the majority of Christians being so greedy with their finances. I want to say that just can't be true, but then I think about it and realize it probably is. You know, I was reading the status updates on Facebook the other day, and a lady I don't know extremely well (an acquaintance) posted that she had no health insurance (husband out of work), no income (for the same reason), and had been going without migraine medicine for a period of time because of this and was in terrible pain. Several people commented that they were praying for her, or that they felt bad for her. But as I read along I wondered why no one offered to buy her some migraine medicine. I didn't offer either, so I am in the same boat. It's so easy to say "Go, and may God bless you" without taking any action to be that blessing. Sometimes opportunities to give financially practically beat us on the head, but we've become so accustomed to ignoring them or rationalizing them away. I'm obviously speaking for myself here, though I must be hitting a nerve with other Christians since I'm not the only one factored into that 2% average mentioned above. Giving is such a sensitive topic. No one wants to sound like a tightwad or a goody two shoes about it. So all I am going to say is, most of us probably fall short either a little or a lot when it comes to generosity and sacrificial giving. And it's something I think about and wish everyone would think about from time to time so that we can all grow more generous and rely more on God.