The Goal of Living Frugally (Frugal Pastor – Part 8)

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Today I’d like for us to think about why it’s important to live a frugal life.

--It’s not to avoid debt, though that’s a big part of it. Being frugal is the key to stop the use of consumer debt as a lifestyle tool.

--And it’s not to have money left over after our expenses to invest and build wealth with, though that’s certainly part of it too.

Living frugally has one goal: to enable us to have money left over after our needs are met to give as generously as possible to God-led initiatives.

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and an influential Quaker in the Colonial era, wrote a small book called Some Fruits of Solitude. In it he wrote about this very topic,

“Frugality is good, if Liberality be join’d with it. The first is leaving off superfluous Expences; the last bestowing them to the Benefit of others that need. The first without the last begins Covetousness; the last without the first begins Prodigality: Both together make an excellent Temper. Happy the Place where ever that is found.” (Some Fruits of Solitude, William Penn, Reflection #50).

“Frugality is good, if Liberality be join’d with it”
Being frugal and then giving away the wealth you’ve created to meet the needs of other people is a good thing. What isn’t good? Two things Penn says.

“The first (frugality) without the last (liberality) begins Covetousness”
Being frugal without an eye to giving away what we don’t use for our own needs leads to “Covetousness.” That’s not a word we use anymore. Greed is a fairly good synonym for covetousness. It was one of the “seven deadly sins” identified by medieval theologians. Basically it is a thirst for what we don’t have. Being frugal, Penn says, without liberally giving away what we retain to those in need simply creates a thirst for getting more money.

“the last (liberality) without the first (frugality) begins Prodigality”
Prodigality was another old English word we don’t use anymore. Prodigality simply meant “excessive spending.” It was a description of lavishness.

Have you ever met someone who gave away lots of money they didn’t have? That’s prodigality. Giving away money you don’t have, while putting money on credit cards and having nothing in savings, is just as bad, according to Penn, as being stingy and never giving money away.

“Both together make an excellent Temper. Happy the Place where ever that is found.”
To me, that’s the goal of frugality. Not so much the act of giving but what happens to people as they give.

As a pastor much of my time is spent in the reclamation business – helping people reclaim their lives out of the ditches they’ve allowed themselves to drive into (having, of course, driven myself into many ditches myself).

Probably the biggest ditch people drive themselves into is divorce.

Excessive spending is usually the vehicle.

Show me a marriage where a couple has (1) learned to work together on their finances and (2) learned to live as frugally as possible and (3) taken their excess resources and given them away to God-inspired needs…you show me that marriage and I’ll show you a home where a sign could be placed in the old English idiom, “Happy the Place.”