Am I the only one who finds the “Giving Tuesday” concept a whole lot of backwards? The culture dictates your Thanksgiving holiday weekend goes like this:
Thursday--“Thanksgiving Day,” gorge yourself out of gratitude. Scour the ads for what you “need” to buy, develop a strategy for getting to the stores at the stroke of midnight in order to ensure what you want to buy is available. Possibly even commence shopping before the leftovers are put away.
Friday--“Black Friday,” run yourself ragged with shopping. Let your greed run rampant, buying things for others that they may or may not want or actually need. Spend more than you anticipated, or just spend without giving it any thought whatsoever. Use a credit card to avoid facing the reality of how much you’re spending.
Saturday--“Small Business Saturday,” trip around your town with your not-quite-maxed-out credit card and purchase items from local “small” businesses to “maintain” your local economy. Pat yourself on the back because you helped keep your community strong. Keep spending.
Sunday--watch TV and football and create a plan for your next spending episode, allow the commercials to convince you that there are still things out there that you or your kids need, and they’re found online.
Monday--“Cyber Monday,” warm up that credit card again folks! There are ONLINE DEALS that are ONE DAY ONLY and you should not take time to think about them before you purchase them!
Tuesday-- “Giving Tuesday,” Okay, after 3 or 4 days of spend, spend, spend, it’s NOW time to give from what may or may not be left. (Nothing left to give? Oh well, maybe next year...)
People! This. Is. Backwards! From the beginning of time, God has asked for the firstfruits. Not the spoiled scraps of the leftovers.
Genesis 4:3-5 says, “Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.”
I am assuming that, somewhere along the line, God gave instructions about offerings made to Him, though it isn’t recorded for us to know for sure. Cain gave some from the soil, Abel gave from the firstborn of his flock--the best. We don’t get to know specifically what Cain’s offering was, but I suppose it wasn’t the best, and I assume his heart wasn’t really in it, based on God’s response. (1 Samuel 16:7—People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”) So while some may get upset about God’s perceived “pickiness,” at the end of the day, He is Lord, he sees our intentions.
But I digress. My point here is to say that “Giving Tuesday” is backwards simply because it comes AFTER a bunch of selfish spending (even if you are buying for “others”) and encourages a “what’s left” mentality rather than a godly mentality of giving FIRST out of gratitude to God for all he has entrusted to us.
As someone who is working at modeling handling personal finances with God’s instructions as a guide, I find it really difficult to get excited about “Giving Tuesday.” Let's bump it up a week and start the giving before all the spending. Perhaps that way we’d experience the satisfaction of doing good before we go out and make a bunch of foolish spending choices, and avoid making bad spending choices in the first place.
God doesn't want our leftovers. That's why He commanded—and told the Israelites to TEST HIM—that they bring the whole tithe (the first 10% of EVERYTHING) into the storehouse. (Malachi 3:10)
