Money & Finances
I want to be generous but I have been burned before by someone who was not honest with me about what they needed. How do I give without being naive?
“A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion.”
This psalm sketches the settled life of someone who fears God, and generosity appears in the portrait alongside a word usually translated discretion or judgement. The two sit together rather than being balanced against each other. The picture is not of a person whose kindness overrides their thinking. It is of someone whose affairs are guided carefully and who is open handed within that, deliberately rather than accidentally.
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Jesus is sending the twelve out into territory he describes bluntly as wolves among sheep. His instruction pairs two qualities that rarely sit together: the shrewdness of a serpent and the harmlessness of a dove. He does not ask them to be trusting to the point of foolishness. Discernment about people is presented as a requirement of the mission, not a failure of love.
A path forward
Where you are unsure, give in ways that are hard to misuse: pay a bill directly, buy the groceries, cover the specific cost rather than handing over cash.
Set an annual giving figure in advance and stick to it. A decided budget removes the pressure of having to make the call under someone's gaze.
Ask God in prayer for wisdom about specific requests, and talk the hard ones through with one person who knows you well. Being deceived once tends to make people either reckless or closed, and neither has to be permanent.
Closing verse
“Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.”
- Romans 12:8
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