How to Give Amongst So Many Opportunities

In several places the Bible directs us to give our money. This can be in the form of a tithe to your church, as well as direct giving to various charities and individuals in need. One complication of giving however is that there are so many potential needs surrounding us that we can easily get confused as to which we should support with our giving. And this can lead to feeling guilty in the process.

Have you ever felt this way? There are so many causes, one more worthy than the next. In addition, we all have limited resources so we’re never in a position to simply give to everyone. How do you sort out who you should give to and how much?

Giving to One Cause

One way to handle this dilemma is simply to give to a single cause. That can be your church, a specific outreach ministry, or a charity that’s important to you.

Giving is giving, no matter who we give to. You can give to the single cause that you feel most passionately about, feeling certain that just as God has you giving to a cause of your choice, you will have others doing the very same thing for other causes. In that way everything balances out, even though you yourself are focused on a single, specific cause.

Giving Mostly to One Cause and a Little to Others

If you have a single cause that you feel strongly about, but heartstrings continue to pull at you, then you can choose to make the majority of your giving to a single cause, while parceling out much smaller amounts to various others.

In this way you’ll be supporting the cause you feel most passionately about, but still contributing to various other causes at least in some small way.

Giving a Little Each to Many Causes

Some people don’t feel a heavy leading to give to any single cause. In that case you can choose to give a little to many different causes. Even though it seems like you’re only giving a little – the proverbial drop in the bucket – the total of all of your giving is having an impact even if it doesn’t seem obvious.

It’s sometimes thought that for you to give, you have to do it in some meaningful way. That thinking only makes sense if you are the only one giving to a certain cause. Since that’s virtually never true, you can give what little you have and know that it will make a difference when pulling together the contributions of others.

Giving Time and Effort

We often think of giving only terms of money. But you can also give of your time your efforts, and the gifts will be no less significant. This opens up a lot more options, especially if financially you have only limited capacity to give.

You can choose to make monetary contributions to your church, but volunteer your time and effort to help various other charities or even to help people in need in some direct way. Time and effort is often more important than money, especially when people are going through some sort of crisis. And every charitable organization, whether it’s a church or other institution, is always in need of volunteers.

Giving of your time and efforts, in addition to money, will open your giving options much wider than if you give only money alone.

Sometimes God Puts a Cause on Our Hearts

While it’s probably perfectly okay to give using the shotgun approach – throwing money out here and there in the hopes that will get to where it needs to be – if you take your giving to God in prayer to ask Him to reveal where your money, time, and efforts will do the most good He may reveal it to you.

Each of us have talents, interests, abilities and passions that could very well make our giving more significant if targeted to a specific cause. Only God can reveal that to us, but in order for that to happen we have to ask.

How do you determine how your giving will work? Leave a comment!