"Giving Up Half Of Our Possessions Made Our Family Whole"
Stirred by economic injustice in the world, this Atlanta family felt convicted to sell their large home and through downsizing, give the proceeds to those in need. (In this case, it wound up benefitting 30 villages in Ghana.)
Click here to read the article.
Security, protection from scarcity and a temptation toward pride is so hard-wired in our systems, it is difficult to look very hard to see where we may be off.
The father and daughter of this family wrote a book about their experiences called “The Power of Half” which encourages readers to consider where there is excess in their lives—excess that could be making an impact. And it isn’t just about money.
Father and co-author Kevin Salwen writes:
…The more we’ve examined this abundant life the more we realize that everyone has more than enough of something. Spend 6 hours a week on Facebook? Cut it in half and now you have a new 3-hour resource to sing in a nursing home or clean a neighborhood park. Eat out four times a week? Cut that in half and share what you save with the local soup kitchen…A life of abundance, not scarcity.
It’s an interesting challenge. In this case, it’s powerful to imagine the far-reaching and ongoing result from this one family. Granted, they are wealthier than many, but still, through the charity they donated to, dozens of villages in Ghana have been provided with education, job training and basic infrastructure needs.
Have you had an experience where something caused you take stock of your life in a way that you hadn’t before? Did you give in a way that was different than usual? What was the result?
Send your stories to media@rswr.org.
Watch an interview with the Salwen’s.
Ken’s Hot Dogs: On Being a Wealthy Christian
Link: Ken’s Hot Dogs: On Being a Wealthy Christian
“…Our wealth is blessed by God, only if we are ready to part with it.”
—Ken @ Ken’s Hot Dogs
This post is so right-on.
How easy is it to feel poor and that we don’t have enough? Someone always has more and we are enticed. Not that we feel bad when we acquire new things. The surge can be very pleasurable and for a time, we feel full, content, lifted and satiated.
I don’t mean to negate the severity of the strain that our current economic situation has put on some. It seems many of us are feeling the pinch at least a little bit. After losing my small business 2 years ago in a string of compounded personal hardships, I went through a darkness that is still painful to describe. I was crushed and financially desperate at times, and it was then that I realized I really have no idea what its like to be poor. (And given my upbringing as a preacher’s kid in a large family, I really thought I did!)
Struggle is struggle, no matter what the context, but it is nearly impossible to imagine life in circumstances where there is such serious instability in meeting one’s most basic needs. I became keenly aware of my lack of experience in this area, and I suddenly felt a compassion for individuals in ongoing or new poverty in this country and overwhelmed incomprehension of life in developing countries.
I appreciate that Ken brings up the scriptural passages about love being the motivating force in our giving.
I have had to check myself on occasion. Am I giving out of a sense of fear or guilt? Is this gift from the Right place?
I personally believe that sometimes it is our time and place to give, and sometimes it isn’t. I strive to turn my finances over to the Divine completely.
I have found instruction to give both when I wanted to and when I didn’t. The instruction came in a way of feeling both pressed and spacious forward movement.
I have also declined giving, keeping my means wadded and hidden.
I have had to be honest with myself that I am feeling selfish and not ready to be what feels “generous.” I don’t have it *spiritually* to give.
I have found when I give from a sense of guilt, I feel resentful. (I must note that this goes away though.)
Occasionally, as I make myself willing and hunker deep down, I feel a gentle instruction that whatever is before me, is simply not mine to respond to—not at that time.
That is a rarer sense, and who knows it’s an accurate reading.
On the other side of a dark financial place, I can speak of the freeing power of realizing that God is in control, we can (and are instructed to) ask for all of our needs to be met (even the things we know to be silly can be brought in prayer). There is more than enough to go around and we don’t have to hold on quite so tightly. When we live into this, things happen, and the sense of satiation flows from the knowledge that, there is a current beneath it all that is deeply well. We are a part of that current.
Betsy Blake for RSWR
betsy@rswr.org
Note: The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect views of Right Sharing of World Resources. Thank you for reading!
