30-Day Giving Challenge: Days 4 & 5

Our Small Group is currently reading through David Platt's Radical.  The reading for this week (which we haven't been able to discuss yet) was Chapter 6 - about living in the midst of such wealth in a world dominated by poverty.  I am not even joking when I say I literally finished the chapter, put the book down and went to my closet to pull out all of the sweaters I don't need so I could find someone who does.  My mantra was, "If I don't love it, I don't need it."

It was crazy, once I began sifting, to note how many extra winter hats I have and gloves and scarves.  Most of which I never wear - I have a favorite or two and that's all that ever makes it out of my closet.  So why do I keep the others?  "Just in case"?  In case of what?  The event that I grow an extra head or that spare set of arms I really wish I had? 

I only made it through winter wear but the rest of my closet (and our home) will be getting an overhaul soon. 

I have yet to decide where the excess will go - so right now I simply have random piles of cold-weather clothing sporadically located through our home, but I'm praying God will show me who He has in mind.

My giving for the day was actually going to be donating the food I received while Trick-or-Treating for canned goods this past weekend.  I realized, though, that simply donating the food others had given wasn't really giving (at least not on my behalf).  So, I went through my pantry with the same vigor unleashed on my sweaters.  "If I don't love it, I don't need it."

And it was freeing. 

My favorite part of Chapter 6 was a story David Platt told of a member of his congregation who began giving away untold amounts of his wealth and drastically reducing his lifestyle, explaining, "[T]here is never going to come a day when I stand before God and he looks at me and says, 'I wish you would have kept more for yourself'" (p.123).  Wow.  That's the kind of thinking that will change your life - and I so want it to change mine!

After all of that, I would say it was really disappointing to feel like such a failure on Day 5.  I realized at 8:30pm that I hadn't given at all today.  All I had done was take.  I went to a lunch hosted by a friend and was the only one without something to contribute to the meal.  I went shopping and, although I felt the urge a couple of times to offer coupons to strangers shopping for things I actually had the coupons for, I ignored the feeling - that would require talking to people I didn't know!  And that's just it - I don't want to give in a way that really requires me to step out of my zone.  So I didn't.

I did, in an effort to be able to say I'd actually given, donate nearly all the Swagbucks I currently had in my account (150) to their current charity - Ovarian Cancer Research.  A worthy cause, no doubt - but the donation wasn't even worth $5. And it was a half-hearted effort at best.  It was empty.  And I know it. 

So, I failed.

But I won't let that stop me.  It would be so easy to count it all as lost and just go back to giving as I see fit.  But I am determined - to be more open and more receptive to God's nudges - and to finish these 30 Days.

Here's to dusting myself off.

PS Tomorrow there will be a blood drive at Shawnee Mall from 10am-3pm (according to obi.org) - I plan to donate!  Will you join me?!