I was driving home tonight, and i had the most bumbling epiphany ever, so i thought i should record it for posterity.

One of the precepts of holistic missions is that we are to Send, Pray, Give, and Go.

If i'm serious about being a sender, and not a goer, for world missions, i need to make more money. This makes me incredibly irate. I like putting money at the bottom of my priority list-- reference my extended periods of unemployment, and my extreme reluctance to do anything that involves more work for money, like consulting.

However, anyone who is serious about sending as a calling needs to be contributing financially as well as in equipping, sending, encouraging, and helping. I think that's totally true. And i'm uniquely situated to be making a lot more than i am right now.

I need to put my gifting where my mouth is.

Which is lame, because i hear people talk all the time about maximizing their earning power so they can "give more," but i have yet to see that lived out in a tangible way. Earning more is a trap! And i am more susceptible than most. So i don't want to be one of those people. Would i be?

But if i could increase my earnings 20% and trim my lifestyle another 20%, i'd be giving almost 33% of my net income to overseas missions. That'd go a lot further in countries where people earn $2.50/day than it does here, where my Taco Lita addiction runs me $2.50/meal.

My heartfelt desire is that Sending would be more than a cop-out to live inauthentically.