what is money for anyway?

i'm going to try to let my heart leak out a little bit in this post. just some raw thoughts.

i've written a lot about money the past few posts. i think the ultimate and greatest purpose of money is the Glory of God and to Bless others. i think those are 1 and the same... not 2 different purposes.

i think God has blessed me with money so that i can be a blessing to others... so that i use HIS money (ultimately it's His) for His name's sake... not for my own sake.
i think God has blessed all of us with money for that same purpose. i think He makes it deafeningly clear in the Bible that He wants us to GIVE to the poor/to His Kingdom!

i think most of us Americans are ridiculous. it's freaking apalling that most of us are living paycheck to paycheck barely paying our car payments and for our fancy dinners and for our fancy bottled water when a lot of the world doesn't even have an option of having any of these things.

i really can't comprehend how we spend our money. my pulse and blood pressure are all jacked up right now and i have a headache thinking about how stupidly we use our money. i can't fathom how we spend $19 billion every year playing golf and $16 billion each year on ice cream in America and it would only take $10 billion to give everyone in the world clean water for the rest of their lives.
unclean water is the biggest killer in the world. and that's what around 1 billion people are drinking every day.

Around 10 children died from a lack of clean water since you have been reading this post! 

that should bother you. & that's just 1 example. it should bother us and make us think when we go to buy a new pair of shoes. if we ever even flirt with buying a new car we should think about that first. all the crap we buy should make us think - "is this really the way i should be spending this money?"

i think we're all insane to justify how we spend our money. lots of purchases i have made bother me... and i don't really spend money. i certainly don't spend money on expensive stuff very often! Our 2nd day after Thanksgiving together we bought a big fancy TV for like a fourth of what it usually costs... but it was probably still enough to help lift 8 families out of poverty. did i really need an iPhone? do i need 3 pairs of shoes? do i need more than 7 shirts (1 for each day of the week)? 

we're so freaking rich and we give so freaking little.

1 of our goals is to be able to give away half of everything we make to God's Kingdom - missions, the poor, etc... we're definitely not there yet, but everything in me wants to be there soon... and then move beyond it.

but that sounds radical doesn't it? that sounds weird doesn't it? downsizing. doing without "necessities". 10% is all we need to give right?

but if i'm being honest from my heart... giving away half of what we make is pretty sad. why can't we live on a lot less than half?

we are blinded and ruined by our crazy consumeristic culture. we have to "keep up". everyone has 2 cars and a house payment and cable and an iPhone right?

Everyone drops $200 or $400 or $600 a month on a car payment right?

this makes me so angry and i know God is FURIOUS. not that we have nice things but that we spend all our money on ourselves! that's ludicrous and... i'm going to go ahead and say it... sinful.

& i'm guilty. i spend way too much money on me. i get sucked into my own culture and i'm selfish.

I WANT OUT!
i want God to use the money He has blessed me with for His glory... to radically change lives among the millions of unreached people who have never even heard His name... to save lives of people who would otherwise be dead because of the poverty they were born into.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

(thinking through this "dilemma" i have created in my next post.)