A Financial Finish Line?
The following was excerpted from Joy Giving: Practical Wisdom from the First Christians and the Global Church by Cameron Doolittle. This is a continuation of last month’s Lifestyle Caps article.
Several givers I talked with set financial finish lines. Where lifestyle caps are about a person's annual rate of spending and income, financial finish lines look at a person's cumulative wealth.
Many givers save until they reach this "financial finish line" and then live on the interest from that. Some, including Vlad in central Europe, reduce their assets year by year. "Our plan is to give away everything," Vlad says. "We are waiting for more specific answers from God, but that is our plan."
To set a financial finish line, givers need to ask: How large a corpus do I need to live at my lifestyle cap for the rest of my life? When "keeping" is our default, we accumulate more and more without actually thinking about what we are saving for. Is it for our children's inheritance? Is it for a big gift from our estate?
Generosity Comes Into Focus Through Planning
Daryl Heald explains, "This is foundational. ... The scope of what you can give dictates everything else. People haven't answered the 'principal' question because they lack planning. If you haven't decided your estate plan and what you're doing with your business, then you can’t answer the giving question comprehensively. People can give a lot more once they've taken the time to plan."
Minsoo in Korea says, "God made me rich, but I didn't want to accumulate wealth. My wife and I decided that we have a certain level of wealth, and that is all we need. More than that, we give to God."
Financial planners tell me that their clients are often overjoyed when they look at their entire financial picture and realize how much they can give. One financial planner told me about a client who found out that he could give three times more than he had been giving.
Look at your whole financial picture. You may find that you are able to give even more than you thought!
How Lifestyle Caps and Financial Finish Lines Work Together
Let's say you earn $10 per year. You pray and feel led to live on $5, to give $2, and to save $3 each year.
The $5 is your lifestyle cap. You accumulate the $3 per year, letting it grow and increase. Over the years, those $3 annual investments add up and earn interest. Eventually, they generate enough income to cover your $5 lifestyle cap. The amount that generates enough to cover your lifestyle cap is your financial finish line. At that point, you continue living on your $5, giving the initial $2 that you were giving before, and you also get to give away the $3 that you had been saving. You also get to give away any interest that accrues on your investments. Of course, if your investments drop in a given year, you could begin saving again until you reach the financial finish line that God has given you.
While I hope the example above illustrates the principle of how lifestyle caps and financial finish lines work together, don't get stuck in the specifics or see this as prescriptive. The mechanics are not the point; the point is that we've asked God, "How much is enough?" and seize the opportunity to give away the excess.
Faith & Finance Perspective
Most of us view our financial journey as a lifelong pursuit that ends when we pass into eternity. We often consider that moment to be our finish line. Whatever we had at the time of our departure will get passed on to our heirs, our favorite charitable causes, or, if we fail to plan well, the state probate court. (To avert this tragic third outcome, email Orchard Alliance’s Gift and Estate Design specialists at GiftPlanning@orchardalliance.org.)
But what if the true finish line were something you could cross while you’re still around to celebrate? What if you were able to see some of the fruits of your Christ-honoring commitments and cultivate even more before you pass? Prayerfully consider what the author poses above. Heed his advice not to get stuck in the specifics. Instead, wrestle through the deeper, pivotal question: How much is enough? Only then will you experience the true freedom and joy of biblical generosity.
Then the people rejoiced because they had offered so willingly, for they made their offering to the Lord wholeheartedly.
- 1 Chronicles 29:9a