Save All You Can, Give All You Can

When faced with this “Christian financial paradox,” the gut response for most Christians is to create a rule. The most famous rule is the 80-10-10 rule. This rule suggests that a house­hold should: Save 10%, Give 10%, and Live 80%. It is simple, straightforward, and easy to follow. However, rules essentially ignore the paradox and rob us of the opportunity to grow deeper in our relationship with Jesus.

There is a better way to navigate the Chris­tian financial paradox, namely, through art.

When we use art, we co-create with God, walking alongside Him as we craft a personal response to any paradox before us.

At this point, I may have lost you. “I am no artist!” you may say. But even if you cannot draw or paint, one way you can craft a person­al saving and giving strategy is by collecting metaphors. Jesus often used metaphors to help us understand the complexities of His Kingdom (e.g., vines, seeds, wheat, salt, work­ers, weddings, etc.).

Regarding the Christian financial paradox, I have been collecting metaphors over the years. Here are just a few:

• WATER / If water does not have a wide and healthy outlet that allows it to give what it receives, it loses its ability to bring life and, instead, becomes a stagnant pool, useless to all.
• TREES / The ultimate purpose—or telos—of a tree is to bear fruit. It gathers and stores nutrients not only to sustain itself through winter but also to fulfill its purpose of producing fruit.
• BARN / A farmer uses their barn to be an excellent farmer (not to stop farming). Without a barn, a farmer risks being unable to sustain their farming activity if their “seed stock,” essential for planting next year’s harvest, is lost to a harsh winter.

As a family, we’ve embraced these metaphors and crafted a family response: we aim to have our giving rate be double our savings rate, and our cumulative giving account be twice the size of our retirement account. This approach reflects the beauty and generosity we see in Jesus and in His world as expressed in our metaphors.

Finding meaningful metaphors can guide you in developing a personal giving and saving strate­gy—one that embraces the financial paradox and co-creates with God a beautiful, God-glorifying balance between saving and generosity.