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BY DAVID C. MYERS

None of us need to be told that we're living in tough economic times. And if these are hard times for us, it is even harder times for those who depend upon charitable giving to survive.

But we do want to help. After all, Christians are called on to "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, set free the oppressed."

People on the margins face empty shelves at food pantries and the feeding kitchens are trying to make do with decreased donations. We are also faced with the uncertainty of our own financial well-being.

Since the shelves are becoming empty, apparently society's own economic uncertainty is prevailing over our sense of generosity.

How does our faith speak to this dilemma? How can our faith help us?

One place we might begin is trusting God. God actually challenges us to give in times like this. In Malachi 3 God says, "You are robbing me . . . with your tithes and offerings! . . . Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, . . . see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down an overflowing blessing."

Imagine putting God to the test by giving even more - especially in these hard economic times. But God's promise is we will receive an overflowing of blessing. How hard it is to give with only the promise of a blessing. And what kind of a blessing will it be?

During this stewardship season one of the laity in my church gave a testimony to how he determined his pledge.

He said he needed to make giving a spiritual exercise, but that it was hard to do because he was a coward. He explained it by saying he normally gave out of his abundance - his leftovers, after all the bills and "wants and needs" were paid. He never put his church or charitable giving first, he said, because he didn't trust God.

He didn't have the faith that God would provide enough. He said he needed to have faith that God will provide and move his pledge to the top of the list of the bills to be paid. He was willing to put God to the test.

Such an understanding helps us live a life based on a theology of abundance as opposed to a more worldly theology of scarcity. As we approach Christmas, there is an excellent example of the theology of abundance when we participate in a candlelight service: the light of Christ lights all the candles in the room. From one small light perhaps hundreds are lit and the room is filled with light. The one solitary candle gave its light - and its own light was not diminished. God will provide.

Living out of abundance rather than out of scarcity is also the difference from living a life of "entitlement" to living a life of "gratitude." Entitled people are self-reliant, they have no sense of dependence, no sense of incompleteness. While our society lauds these attributes, I confess that without other people helping me, without other people holding me accountable, without God blessing me, I am incomplete.

A life of gratitude, on the other hand, implies dependence on God, it implies that we have needs and that without the Other we are incomplete.

The week after one layperson gave his testimony of making his pledge a spiritual exercise, our lay leader reminded us that our faith teaches us that everything we have is a gift from God. Everything is from God - our food, the air and water, our talents, our skills, our friends, our family.

If we understand that God has gifted us, he said, then when we give to charity we don't really "give," we "return." We return to God a portion of the gifts to which we have been entrusted. And when we give to charity, we return to God, for in Jesus' words (in the parable of the sheep and goats at the last judgment), "As you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me."

In a church I served several years ago a woman told me that once she started tithing, putting her pledge at the top of her budgeting, she had much less difficulty in making ends meet.

"It is the discipline," she said. She then said that once she did this, she found she always had more than enough. She had put God to the test. And God passed it with flying colors.

Sam Houston got it right. About 170 years ago, Sam Houston went to a Baptist preacher to get baptized. The preacher told Sam what he could expect with a baptism by immersion: that Sam would be gently lowered into the waters of purification, all his sins would be washed away and then he would be lifted out of the water into God's grace.

Sam started chuckling. The preacher asked him what he was laughing at. Sam said if all his sins were being washed away he was worried about the quality of the water downstream after his baptism.

Then the Baptist preacher said to Sam, "Before we begin, you may want to take your wallet out of your pocket."

Sam turned serious. He looked at the preacher and said, "No, my wallet needs to be baptized as much as I do."

Sam knew. We need a new beginning, a total and complete new beginning. And then maybe we will hear the words in the story of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25, "Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

May you give generously. God will bless you abundantly.

The Rev. Dave Myers is senior pastor of Chevy Chase UMC and chairs the conference United Methodist Foundation committee.