Christmas Financial Stress

Are you already stressed with the many "alamutan" and "donations" for this Christmas?

In the Philippines, the days (even weeks) before Christmas is stressful.

While we enjoy the parties and fun outings, it also admittedly drains our financial resources despite the Christmas bonuses and 13th month benefits.

This dampens the real spirit of Christmas as the Season when we live out the saying that "it is better to give than to receive."

Here are some thoughts that might help you get through the stress and strains during this season.

God’s Annual Budget

The Kabbalistic sages claimed that at the beginning of the year, God decides on the individual basis, how much that person will have and how much he will lose.

Another way of looking at it; is that life will always consist of blessings and woes, of gains and losses, of victories and failures.

It is part of life.

The sages are telling us that if indeed, we are meant to lose something then we should find ways of losing that will be beneficial for us.

In principle, what we give away as tzedakah (almsgiving and tithes) is already considered as something that we gave away so that it will become part of what is determined by God that we will lose that year.

But there is something more here since we gave it away as tzedakah, it is not something that we can indeed lose because what we did was fulfilling a commandment.

Giving tzedakah is indeed two-fold in its effects: it averts misfortune and brings blessings to our lives.

Participating in God’s Economy

Jewish Kabbalistic wisdom tells us that every year God determines the amount of wealth that he will distribute to the world.

Since God is a just God, he makes sure that everyone will have his or her fair share. However, God does this in a manner that we cannot easily understand.

To make it clear, I will give an illustration.

For example, God decided that for this year, he will give Php 500,000 to persons A and B.

If we are the ones who will make it happen, we will give Php 500,000 to person A and another Php 500,000 to person B.

Plain and easy with everybody happy.

But, this is not the case.

God would often give Php 1,000,000 more or less to person A.

Why?

It is, so that person A will be the one to distribute Php 500,000 to person B.

This is how God’s economy works.

Of course, I am not saying that we give half of our entire income to a particular person.

What I am trying to illustrate is that God abundantly blesses some people so that they, in turn, can become channels of God’s blessings to others.

I am reminded of the way the older generation will look upon their wealth.

They would often say their wealth is just borrowed from the Lord.

Since it is only borrowed from the Lord, the Lord can take it anytime, and they are also more inclined to share it with others.

Unlike, nowadays when we treat wealth as something we earned.

This makes it more difficult for us to give because, at the back of our minds, we keep telling ourselves I earned it by breaking my back.

Whatever is extra is not mine, but it belongs to those for whom God intended it to be given. Our early church fathers would share the same perspective.

The poor as an agent of God’s economy gives us the opportunity to fulfill God’s commandments.

If not for the poor knocking for our generosity we will not be able to accomplish God’s will.

If there are no poor, to whom shall we give our tzedakah?

This is the reason why we should try to see the poor as someone who participates in God’s economy by their suffering.

We should be grateful to the poor because they are suffering for us so that we can benefit from God.

REMEMBER that whatever we give away in tzedakah makes us participate in God's economy, averts evil and brings us blessings.

So, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS NOT BY HOW MUCH YOU RECEIVE BUT HOW MUCH YOU GIVE.