Now that's enough

   ...give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God.
~My father's prayer from the sayings of Agur recorded in Proverbs chapter 30

Growing up my dad would periodically tell us that his prayer was to have just enough and not too much. To be honest, as a teenager this seemed like shooting for mediocrity. Ah, how nice to no longer be a teen.

As I grow older and observe the world around me and observe the role of money in the world, I think I'm going to have to agree with my dad. Actual poverty is a grinding, difficult state (different from voluntary simplicity). And actual wealth guarantees nothing. I have directly observed that the rich don't always stay rich. The rich are not necessarily happier, and the children of the wealthy are not protected from being screw ups.

So what's the middle road? Well, I don't think it's an income level. Instead it's a heart thing. In Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, he instructs people to not store up treasure for themselves on earth but in heaven because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Growing up, my brothers and I thought we were on the lower end of the money totem pole with our thrift store clothes, no Nintendo, and the careful way my mom bought groceries. But as an adult looking back, I see that my parents made a conscious choice to invest in things greater than "treasures on earth". Even when their income was small, my parents sacrificially supported their own parents, their local church, missionaries abroad, and us their kids. We didn't have new clothes, but we did have a meaningful Christian education for the first 8 years.

Contentment in our material life is a heart issue that's independent of what we own. The question we have to ask is who are we living for? Are we looking out for ourselves or are we "seek[ing] first the kingdom of God"?

I have a number of wealthy uncles, but one stands out. He's literally the millionaire next door with his Honda Accord, threadbare undershirts, and furniture not quite old enough to be retro. His latest venture? Going to seminary and becoming a pastor for a church an hour from his home because there's a Chinese community that needs one. While pastoring might be his swan song, he's lived a lifetime consistently serving others even in the busy years of growing his company.

Living with these examples, N and I are conscious that we have choices too. Where are we storing our treasures? Are we seeking God's kingdom first? So far we've come up with a few lines of defense in a world of unsatiable wants. First, we give unemotionally. We pray and then we lop off a percentage of every paycheck for our church and missionaries around the world. This amount increases with every pay raise. Second, we shun advertising/window shopping. I don't let the stuff in my inbox and N keeps it out of our mailbox. Third, we don't prematurely retire things that are still working. We've got cars, appliances, and computers that are getting long in the tooth, but we keep them running and are saving for when they do die.

So, dear reader, what's it like for you? How do you get to just enough and not too much?

On clothing--Apropos nothing

Timed well with On Expecting's post on body image I suppose.

I finally went through my dresser and pulled out the winter clothes and the maternity clothes! Woohoo. I surprisingly fit back into my pre-maternity unmentionables which feels like a huge win, so I put the maternity ones away too. I also thinned out my closet of old stuff and stuff that never fit well.

At this point I have about three-and-a-half sizes of clothes. Maternity stuff for when I'm huge; big stuff for when I'm bigger than normal but not huge; normal stuff; and skinny stuff. There's not a ton of skinny stuff but I have a few items from when I inadvertently lost a lot of weight before my wedding. I'm currently wearing big stuff, but they are starting to be noticeably big. So I think I'll soon be back into my normal stuff. Hooray!!

Since things have calmed down with the baby, I'm willing to consider a third kid and I haven't got rid of all the big and maternity stuff. However, that'll be it's own day when all that stuff finally goes to goodwill.

I found a lot of t-shirts from college that I have a hard time parting with. And it reminds me that I need to "grow up" with regards to my clothing. And I fear that I'll go from a slouchy grad student right into a sloppy housewife. I definitely dressed better when I was teaching, so I'm trying to figure out where to land at this point.

I would like to eventually have a minimalist wardrobe of classic, quality clothing for summer and fall/spring--the two primary seasons here. But there are several obstacles: 1) a deficient fashion sense 2) a loathing of shopping 3) an aversion to spending money and 4) an unstable body size and shape. Currently, I'm using #4 as an excuse to not figure out ways around #1-3.

Anyways, we'll see. Right now I'll just revel in the prospect of fitting back into my old jeans soon.

Chicken and Ashes

Ash Wednesday Collect
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
~1979 Book of Common Prayer

Today begins the season of Lent, a time of fasting and mourning our sins as we look forward to celebrating the work of Jesus on the cross on Easter morning.

I was worried that the last post sounded too final, like I had arrived and figured things out. In his second recorded letter to believers in Corinthians, Paul writes to them about giving and calls it the "grace of giving". I need our annual giving tally, I need to list the recipients of these gifts because I need to be able to see that kind of grace in my life.

My dead heart is a hoarder. I have never worried about having food to eat or a roof over my head, but I do find myself running through what ifs. Having a giant pile of cash stashed in the bank makes me feel better, like I'm the master of my own universe. I do think that stewarding our money well by planning and saving is a good idea. But giving presses me into God reminding me that every good and perfect gift comes from him, reminding me that I am NOT the master of my own universe.

In my life, frugal choices have to be balanced with generosity because otherwise I'm just pretending I've got my world under control. When I see the tally of our giving and I experience the sting of "but I could've done X" with that money, I have the opportunity to remember that God has blessed us with abundance now, that my future "security" is not something I craft out of dollars in the bank, and that I have been invited to participate in God's greater work in the world.

Anyways, all that for 89 cent chicken, huh. Well, the start of Lent seems to be an appropriate time to remember and repent of the many ways that I am wretched and money is certainly one of those ways.

89 cent chicken and stewarding what we have

In the last post, I wrote about ways that I've been preparing whole chickens I get for 89 cents a pound. And then I thought to myself, "Why's it so important to me that the chicken is 89 cents a pound?" As it turns out, this is actually related to the year of "doing less". Doing less doesn't mean we're doing nothing. What I'm finding is that we're being drawn back over and over again to "stewarding what we have".

It's tax time here at our place and this ends up being our annual tally up how much we gave away assessment. We try to give away 15% of our gross income every year, but stuff comes up and we may give away more.

89 cent chicken instead of $3.99 chicken helps us to support:
Our local church that invests in us and our community
Friends who invested in us and are now missionaries in Thailand
A child in South America through Compassion Intl.
Friends who have been working to get kids off the streets in Tanzania
Friends who invested in me when I was a college student. One couple is now investing in post-college people and new teachers across the US and another is investing in college kids in Hungary.
Friends who work with the urban poor off my college campus.

I like doing this annual tally because I'm reminded why we didn't buy a fancier house, cooler, new gadgets, and hip furniture and why we do drive older cars and look for ways to spend less. Would it be nice to have our lives "tricked out"? Probably, for a while. But what means more to us is having relationships that are meaningful. We're not the most relationally savvy folk around, so we're grateful to the folk that have poured into us. And I think that's a good thing and something the Apostle Paul encouraged. We want to help them out as we can and right now that's financially. We have money and when we steward our money well, we get to participate in extending the kingdom of God far beyond what we could do with our own two hands and two feet.

Those are the thoughts for the day, more on doing less and stewarding what we have later.