Context update:
As mentioned in one of my recent posts, I haven’t written as much because I have been very busy with life lately. Something I couldn’t say back then but can share now is that I am engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world! It’s not completely related to this financial journey or today’s lesson, but I’m just so excited that I can’t not bring it up. At the same time, the ring itself is obviously a huge financial commitment so it does play into this journey of mine. When you come to this phase in life and you’re not sure how much to spend on the ring then I have one quick tip that I liked – aim for about 4 months worth of your pay. I like this because it cultivates the same amount of love and sacrifice no matter how much you’re earning, and the one earning $50,000 will feel the same challenge as the one earning $100,000 in the journey to purchasing this symbol of love. To give an example and stay transparent, I am on a salary of $52,000 at the age of 21 which meant I challenged myself to get a ring anywhere around $17,000. Even though I haven’t written as much, I definitely have put into practice all the lessons I learnt, and it’s safe to say that this financial literacy definitely helped me get that ring!
Moving on to now, the date is 17th May 2019. This entire learning that I am about to share came from a discussion I had with my older brother Andrew Faleatua. He was sharing his experiences on the topic of being generous and I was amazed at how much he and his wife, Rachel Faleatua, gave away to all kinds of people. Now he wasn’t being arrogant or running around trying to tell everyone, in fact they are both very humble and subtle when it comes to giving, but I was curious and wanted to hear so he happily shared. I could tell that this was a habit that they had both built up over their marriage and it was clear to see that they really enjoyed it whether it was monetary or purely gifts.
One of my favorite stories that he shared was about a time earlier on in their marriage when they decided to pull back on the generosity front in an attempt to manage their finances better. This is totally understandable and the logical response when it comes to reassessing your commitments and tightening the belt. Andrew went on to share that things unexpectedly got harder and even though there was more money due to them not giving as much, that became their most financially trialing time. This is so amazing to me because my mathematical mind says that something else is going on if you have more resources yet experience greater constraint. After a while, they realised something changed ever since they reduced their giving, and so they pushed themselves back into the habit of giving again. This part also amazes me because I would assume that the place they were in is the least likely place for humans to naturally want to give, right when things are harder. Again the logical response is to prioritise yourself and cut back even more on things like giving, but no, my brother and his wife boldly made the move to push against financial pressure by giving away more and being generous, switching from defense to offense! As a result, they have experienced massive overflows over the years of their marriage, and their generosity has yielded great returns in the long run.
Benefits of generosity
Moving on from this discussion I was really intrigued and encouraged so I decided to research generosity even more. Now I say even more because I have heard of generosity before, and in fact it was one of the very first lessons I picked up, but I haven’t taken the time to focus solely on this topic. The first thing I did was listen to a YouTube sermon labelled “Daring to be generous” by Rick Warren while I was doing a workout. To be honest, I wasn’t in a space where I could fully focus or write notes so I haven’t retained each of the lessons he talked about, but there are a few things that hit me really hard. The first is realizing that giving has so many more benefits beyond us purely feeling good about doing good. For example, generosity brings prosperity to whatever I do. The word tells me that a generous person will prosper and whoever refreshes others will be refreshed (Proverbs 11:25). Or Deut 10:15 which says that if I give generously then God will bless me in all my work and in everything I put my hand to. I don’t even need to paraphrase these because they’re so straight up! Generosity brings me more happiness, generosity protects me from poverty, generosity expands my influence, and so much more!
This has been slightly concerning because right now I can see a period of life ahead of me where I will need to save up for a house, pay for a wedding, and somehow also cover a honeymoon. My logical mind is telling me to be reserved and don’t give in order to save as much as possible, but this conviction to give more coupled with a deep reminder that money wasn’t going to solve my problems has resulted in me deciding to be more generous from today onwards.
How to truly be generous
Now, as I said I started with the goal of giving and it was a part of my first budget at the age of 19. The thing is, I had a habit of giving and then calculating what percentage of money I was giving away. The intention was always 5%, but there were many weeks when I didn’t quite give this much, and the most important factor is that I wasn’t giving from the right place entirely. From here I tried to understand how to give from the right place and this is when I came across 2 Corinthians 9:7, “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”. The first most obvious lesson which most of us have heard is that we should be cheerful givers, but I was intrigued at the word “for” which normally means the earlier statements explain what it means to be a cheerful giver. Therefore in my mind this is how I perceived the verse. If I want to be a cheerful giver from a place of joy I must:
- Give as I have decided to in my heart
- Give without reluctancy
- Give without compulsion
In order to ensure I was giving as I decided in my heart, I went to my budget and instead of giving and then calculating the percentage I gave, I reversed the calculation and hardcoded the 5% making it the driver of how much I gave. Hopefully that makes sense and you understand the power of this! Here is the difference it created:
| Before | After |
| “I want to give, but I am not sure when or how much” | “I have set aside $80 that I will give each fortnight” |
| This naturally leads to not giving as much and therefore I experience less joy of giving. | I give freely and regularly which leads to long term joy in the consistent act of giving. |
The next point is around not being reluctant when giving, which I think is already commonly understood. Nobody likes someone who gives their money away yet is sour about it as they give. Most of us would look at them and think it’s better that they don’t give at all because at the end of the day it’s not making anyone happy.
The portion I found very interesting was the fact that we shouldn’t give out of compulsion. That means I should not be giving spontaneously when I feel excited in the moment, and if I do then it doesn’t result in real joy which is not a temporary feeling. For example, let’s say I’m out with the boys and then suddenly I get the idea to shout everyone for lunch. In the moment I would feel excited, give in a way that you would think is generous, and then feel a temporary high from the happiness I gave my friends. Later on down the line when the moment is well passed and the excitement from the friends is gone, naturally I will look at the money I overspent and get negative feelings just as if I overspent on my food budget and so on, which shows that it’s not truly joyful giving. Compare this to if you had a set amount of money to give, meaning that any act of giving came from an intentional portion of money that you have already defined. When you get that idea of shouting your friends lunch, even though it’s a new idea that pops into your mind, the actual resource that you are giving was not from a place of compulsion. Later on down the line when the moment is well passed and the excitement from the friends is gone, we will see the amount we spent and have no regret and the good feeling we get from giving will still be there, proving that this is truly joyful giving.
This hit me really hard because I have seen plenty of people giving away money in the heat of the moment thinking they are being generous, only to be hurt and sour later on down the line. The fact that their happiness is eventually gone means that it is not cheerful giving because joy is not a temporary feeling but something that should last. Some final thoughts I want to clarify. What if we are approached to give donations? What if there is a special offering at church? Does this mean that we don’t grow in our giving? No, this concept does not restrict giving and in fact it allows us to grow better. When we are challenged to give more, this way of giving ensures that we take time and energy to process what is being asked of us. The growth of giving more will happen deeper within us rather than a quick decision which happens on the surface within our mind. Once you have stepped up to the challenge and pushed your heart to a place where you can give more, there will be no negative impacts further down the line because you gave from a genuine place where you accepted and gave freely.
I feel like I could keep ranting on this stuff for a long time, but time to wrap this one up!
In conclusion here are my key learnings:
- Generosity can have returns greater than what we give.
- You can give without being generous.
