Do We Save Too Much?

One thing that confronts me with the way of thinking/believing in this country: they can view saving as “not trusting God to provide for a need.” On a side note, bank accounts are expensive with lots of fees, so it seems like one of the best methods for saving/banking/caring for money here are cooperative groups where everyone pays in a small amount each month, and the total amount is then given to one person for that month to do something big with. While this makes little sense to me because there is technically no monetary gain, it helps because it has the same effect of saving money for a year without actually holding on to that money for a year. If it were instead held on to for a year, it would probably result in it being siphoned off to help with various people’s needs or buy smaller immediate things.

But back to saving vs. trusting God. Some examples we’ve heard of this mindset in the church were given when discussing Jesus’ teaching to rely on God like the flowers of the field and birds of the air – or resonating with the need to pray for daily bread (they actually pray for more general “food of the day” rather than “bread” which is not a common staple in their context). So we’ve heard preachers applauding the fact that they usually only prepare enough food for today, and don’t worry about trying to store prepared food (since refrigerators are rare anyway). These interpretations quickly feel strained and irresponsible to me, but they also confront me with the possibility that maybe our Western cultural conditioning pushes too much to rely on ourselves and what we can take care of. Does that fact that we have refrigerators, and so much food that can be stored, give us a false orientation that we can take care of our daily needs instead of relying on God- does it turn us away freely giving and freely receiving?

The view that saving for the future maybe in opposition to trusting God is most challenging when you see people using what they have now to help with other people’s current needs, rather than focusing on how they may need it themselves later. Despite this cultural current, there are definitely rich people here who have stored up, and benefited at other’s expense. But there are also many who don’t ever accumulate much because it always goes to meet one of their relatives’ needs or a need of a friend.