Daring to Dream

This week's sermon was on finances and dreaming. More on finances and less on dreaming, actually, but the part about vision caught my attention. I realized during it that I don't dream much about what I could do as a result of wise financial management. Instead, I tend to view finances as a means of guarding against diasister that could happen tomorrow. Savings certainly has its place, but I don't tend to think beyond savings to the bigger picture:

If I am not consumed with owning, what else can I do with my money?

The corollary is that in many ways, I don't think aggressively enough about how I can reform the boxes in which I tend to live. (No pun intended.) So my goal for the week is to think through what I could do with a house. Not just the occasional "have more people over for BBQ" type events, but if I owned a house, how could I use it constructively on a day-to-day basis as a single guy.

My other (public), slightly longer term, goal is to brainstorm other expenditures that I can wisely make if I don't buy a house. The catch is that I'm understanding more that I like seeing the visible impact of how I spend my money. I don't really like economics of scale.

With large scale giving, individual donations don't make as much (visible) impact. That is, my pastors get paid regardless of whether or not I give to my church on a particular week. Don't get me wrong, I still think it is vitally important to support the work of the local church I'm involved with. And yes, numerically, individuals do matter. But part of me would like to drop a cow off at my pastor's house and know that for the next month, his family is directly living differently because of me. Actually, that might be fun to do anyway. *wonders what his pastors would do if he gave them each a dozen live pheasants*

<aside>Maybe this issue underscores my difficulty with gifts in general: I like gifts to be personally significant, not generically routine. I'm often reminded of the question in The Game: What do you buy for the man who has everything? I like gifts as meaningful changes; I like them as quality symbolic tokens, but I dislike the "must find gift for occasion X" mindset. If the perfect Valentine gifts doesn't come up until mid-June, it is still a good gift. (On the other hand, if my significant other never thinks of giving gifts, I will be a bit concerned. But I could probably cope...)</aside>

Ironically, I don't particularly think my motivation behind this is to be visible as "the giver" or "the one who sacrificed so much". I'm not immune to that temptation, but I think part of the joy in the "It is more blessed to give than to receive" line is seeing the impact of our giving. Perhaps I'm deceiving myself, but I think it is still possible to be secretive in giving while still seeing others benefit.

So yes, I definately need to think through the whole giving aspect of finances more. (And the saving, and the spending, and the making.) Here's a final thought on how it is good for us to be self-sufficient:

The thief must no longer steal, but work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.