Today's deep thought is on the subject of giving money. Don't get me wrong, I oddly enjoy giving away money.
Ok, so the tithe goes to the church. But then there are so many other people asking for money. Some of them are very easy to dismiss ("how did I get on that mailing list?"). Some of them are some what easy to dismiss ("They aren't a Christian organization" or "I don't have super-strong feelings about this cause"). But then there are the half-dozen groups that I really care about because they have close ties to us (church, friends in missions, and giving away goats). I guess the goats don't really have close ties to me but there is just something about them. Maybe in heaven all "my" goats will show up in a herd one day. But I digress...
So how to choose among the half-dozen groups that we really care about? There is some extra money in the budget for extra giving so I guess we got ourselves into this predicament in the first place. And I don't really have an answer for you either. In some ways it's rather annoying because we will have to not give some people money which makes it seem like their cause isn't important to us. But they are.
Could we give up that one extra "eat-out" per week and give the money away? We could. Does that make us selfish. Probably. It's kind-of a hard truth to live with, but I'm also not sure I want to change. But I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.