165. How to Give Generously Without Guilt: Finding Joy and Alignment in Your Finances

Feeling torn between your desire to give and the reality of bills, debt, and tight budgets? You’re not alone. In today’s Question of the Day, Laura answers a heartfelt question from Mark in Texas about generosity—how much to give, when to give, and how to give without guilt.

Discover why generosity isn’t about dollar amounts, but about heart posture—and how living open-handedly invites abundance and joy into your life.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The biblical foundation for cheerful, intentional giving (2 Corinthians 9:7–8)
• Why generosity must come from alignment, not guilt or pressure
• How to prioritize giving while still caring for your household’s needs
• Why “percentage over perfection” is the key to consistent, joyful generosity
• Practical ways to plan, budget, and practice generosity—including spontaneous moments of blessing

Ready to grow your generosity and experience the joy of giving with purpose? Join the free 7-Day “Give Thanks and Give Back” Challenge inside the Legacy Builders Network on Facebook.
Let’s practice living open-handedly and discover what God can do through a generous heart. 

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Transcript

0:00

hello, and welcome to the question of the day series here on Money and Career Mastery, where we tackle real questions from real people who are trying to make money, feel less chaotic and work feel more meaningful. Think of it like chatting with a friend. If your friend also happened to be a money coach. Okay, let's jump in to today's question.

Laura: 0:21

Hey Accelerator, it's time for another question of the day. If you have a question that you'd like me to answer, please feel free to email me at hello@accelerateyourlegacy.com. And I would love to answer your question today comes from Mark. In Texas. Oh. Hopefully not my brother. Mark says, I feel guilty every time I think about giving. I wanna be generous. But between Bill's debt and just the cost of living, I never feel like I'm doing enough. How much should I really be giving right now? Oh, mark, I love this question. This question shows your heart. It's already leaning towards generosity, and that really matters. It's very exciting because it matters not only to you and your success and your future, but it's also, something that matters very much to God as well. What comes to mind the first time? Anytime anybody asks about giving, the first thing that comes to mind is second Corinthians nine, seven, which says, each one must give as he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver, which, I mean, who doesn't want to be loved by God? Well, what I really love, in that Bible passage is the verse that comes right after that two Corinthians nine, eight, and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you'll abound in every good work. So not only are you deciding to give in your heart and giving cheerfully, but by doing so, you are being blessed and blessed abundantly so that you have all that you need and you're able to do more. You're able to abound in your good work. So your heart posture is right. You want to be giving. That's amazing. You are about to step into abundance in a way that you don't even know, just by the giving, just by the generosity. Generosity itself is not about guilt or about pressure. It's about alignment and joy. Generosity be it, of your time, of your money, of your talents, generosity will give you. Joy just will, especially if you give cheerfully. So I wanna address a couple of things. Three really guiding principles when it comes to giving. First of all, and this is not in my notes, I'm just gonna throw it out there, if, if you feel like you need to give, you should give, but don't give. Money that could be used and should be used to do things like taking care of your household. If you put more emphasis on giving money away than you do, making sure that you are taken care of, you are doing the wrong thing. You need to make sure that your home is being cared for. That means your four walls are covered, and that's your food, shelter, transportation, utilities. That's what needs to be covered. If you wanna give above and beyond that, that's fine. Now, I want you to start where you are, not where you wish that you were when it comes to your spending. That means starting with a small step. Small steps matter. You don't have to go from$0 to$10,000 of giving, although that would be really cool if you could give away$10,000 worth of your money. I also think that when it comes to giving a percentage is better than perfection. So many people choose 10% as a baseline. Tithe literally means 10th. That's what the word means. So people that are choosing to tithe, they're choosing to give a 10th to their local. Church congregation, but scripture also calls us to be a faithful steward. Faithful stewardship is more than a formula. Proverbs three, nine says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Be honoring, give first, give at the top. So a lot of people do their budgets where they have all their bills and everything, and then they pay for their food and their fun things, and then they put generosity down at the bottom. And I promise you, if you give from your leftovers instead of from your values, you will never have any money to give anything. Generosity has to be planned. And yes, you need some room for spontaneous generosity. That is definitely fun. But if you don't prioritize it, it's never gonna happen. It's the easiest thing to put at the bottom of your list to call your leftovers is giving. I like to make budgets with people. If I'm making a spending plan with you, I wanna ask first, do you do any charitable giving? For me, my 10%, that's the first line item in every single budget. Every single one. How much is my giving this month? What is the 10% of what I had coming in for this paycheck? I believe it was John d Rockefeller. I would never have been able to tithe the first million dollars. I would never have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary. Now, he started out making about a dollar 50 a week, easy to tithe on a dollar 50, really hard to tithe on a million dollars. But for John Rockefeller, he knew how important it was to be generous and he had it on his heart to give a 10% of his salary. So when he had a million dollars, that was already part of his practice. Generosity does have to be practiced. You have to get in the habit of it'cause it's hard in the beginning. But let me tell you what, one of my favorite things to do is. Over tipping. I was a waitress for a long time, probably over a decade, 18% was standard, 15% was normal. 20% made you feel real good about yourself. Some people were still doing 10% and if it was that, I'd take that over. Nothing. It just makes me giddy when I can over tip. So my husband and I went out to eat this last week, just one of those days where it felt like, you know what? We're gonna take our plan, we can eat those for leftovers tomorrow.'cause I had something simmering in the crockpot and we were just very intentional with, we're not gonna get to spend a lot of time together due to overtime in the next couple of weeks. So it would be really great if we could just go to dinner with the kids and enjoy some time together. These are some of my favorite moments when we can do that because we have the money. But on top of that, our waitress was really nice and she made a comment about how one of her least favorite things to do when she got off of work was to go home and have to help her kid with homework. She loves helping, you know, being with her kid, but she hates that the time has to be spent doing homework. She's like, Ugh, homework blah. Because my kids were doing homework at the table and I was like, oh, this woman has children and she's having to, or choosing to work at a restaurant. Wouldn't it be fun just to bless her a little bit? So I tipped 30%. Now I love tipping the bill, but we racked up a bit of a bill between the seven of us. But I got to give her a 30% tip. It feels really dang good. But I do that because we're intentional about putting, giving in our budget. I know people that put over tipping as a line item in their budget, which is just super fun. I can't wait to get there one day. So Mark, I know that you're sitting here going, oh, I feel guilty about wanting to do this. Part of that could be because you don't actually have a tightened in budget, but part of it could be because you have some really big goals. Maybe your goal is to be debt free, and that is so incredibly important to you and you're just. You're working so hard right now, and so you're trying to get the debt paid off. I get that and I'm cheering you on Mark. Maybe for right now, we dial it back a little bit. You get to decide in your own heart how much you want to give. Now, give regularly. Don't make it a, oh, I'll get around to it whenever. Make sure your budget is aligned correctly. Remember that, look, you're, you're not failing if you can only give a little bit. You're winning every time you give with intention. And God will honor your heart posture more than your dollar amount. God doesn't need your money. He doesn't need your help, but he does ask you to give. And why does he ask you to give? Why does God ask you to give if he doesn't need your money? Because he knows that it will make you a better person to give. So if you are giving and you feel guilty about giving because you think you're hurting your family, don't do it. If you feel guilty about giving because you feel like you're not giving enough, you need to change the way you're looking at this because God does not need your money to be able to achieve his purposes. But what God knows and what I hope that you know is that he asks you to give because he wants your heart posture to be correct. He wants you to be generous. He wants you to hold things with an open hand because he can't bless you abundantly if your hands are closed. But when your hands are open and you're able to be generous, he's able to bless you abundantly. Your heart is full of abundance and gratitude and joy because of your giving. You are building the habits of your legacy right now. Habits that your family will see and will carry on. So open your hands. Do not give with a closed fist. And if you wanna grow your generosity, this is good. Okay, so this is the perfect. Time for this question because starting the first full week of November, we're doing a seven day generosity challenge called Give thanks and give back. Inside of my free Facebook group the Legacy Builders Network with Laura Sexton, we're going to practice giving with purpose, not guilt, and we are going to discover the joy that God promises and living open handedly. Look, the link is down in the show notes. I hope to see you there. Bring a friend, bring a couple friends. Remember that your giving is a lifestyle of open hands, not just a financial line item. Thank you so much for writing in. I cannot wait to see what blessings God has in short for you because you are choosing to be a giver. Have a great week and I will talk to you again soon. That's it for this week. Accelerators go out and make a difference.