C.S. Lewis' One Rule for Giving & GenerositySample

In doing research on C.S. Lewis and his thoughts about money, I found this passage from one of his earliest letters to Mary Shelburne.

“I’m a panic-y person about money myself (which is a most shameful confession and a thing dead against Our Lord’s words) and poverty frightens me more than anything else except large spiders and the tops of cliffs: one is sometimes even tempted to say that if God wanted us to live like the lilies of the field He might have given us an organism more like theirs! But of course, He is right. And when you meet anyone who does live like the lilies, one sees that He is…

One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.”

–C.S. Lewis

It’s fascinating to me that even with the depth of wisdom and understanding he had, he still (like all of us who are honest) had to wrestle with questions of money and contentment. Personally, I find this really encouraging because even though this is a subject that few wish to talk about, the truth is that we all have to wrestle with answering these questions for ourselves.

It doesn’t matter if we are rich, poor, or somewhere in between, we all have to work to not put our trust in money, but consistently deciding that God is where our trust lies.