Day 6 of 7, a study on trusting God with your money.
I wrote a while back about how hard it's been to figure out giving now that the automatic paycheck deduction is gone. What I didn't say then, because I hadn't noticed it yet, is that I'd quietly been waiting for a feeling before I gave again. Waiting to feel settled, waiting to feel like there was enough margin that generosity wouldn't cost me anything real.
"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
2 Corinthians 9:7
Cheerful isn't the same as comfortable. I'd been treating them like synonyms, waiting for comfortable before I'd let myself feel cheerful about giving. But Paul wrote this to a church he'd been actively encouraging to give beyond their comfort, not after it. The decision comes first, made in the heart, before the feeling of readiness ever shows up. The cheerfulness follows the decision. It doesn't have to wait for it.
Today's Question
What would it look like to decide first and let the cheerful feeling catch up later?
A Short Prayer
Lord, I keep waiting to feel ready to give generously in this new season. Teach me that the decision comes first. Make me a cheerful giver, not a comfortable one. Amen.
God bless,
Paul