The Perils of Lending: An Argument for Giving

A thousand dollars can fix car problems, pay rent, or help with a house payment. A thousand dollars keeps water flowing, heat working, and food on the table. A thousand dollars is a lot of money. The size of your bank account doesn’t change that.

A number of years ago, my husband and I made the decision to loan some friends a thousand dollars. A series of difficult events had put them on the verge of bankruptcy with a work vehicle in need of repair. At the time, our budget was a first lieutenant’s salary, and our own well wasn’t overflowing, but we believed the loan was the right decision. We didn’t sign papers. We didn’t have a payoff schedule. We believed our friends’ commitment to repay us.

If only we had been seeker’s of God’s wisdom back then.

I often read the One Year Chronological Bible for my devotion time, and have discovered that a Bible reading plan’s random passages can unexpectedly shine light into situations past, present, and future. On one particular day, the passage was Proverbs 17–19.

Proverbs is fun to read because there are all sorts of meme-worthy one-liners. At the moment, one of my favorites is, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life” (Prov. 16:31). Funny, shocking, poignant, caustic, duh thoughts, wow thoughts—we get them all. But there is almost always a recurring theme.

On this particular day, friendship and money were the theme, bringing to mind that past situation. With hindsight’s 20/20 vision, I evaluated our decision through the lens of God’s Word.

Proverbs 17:17 tells us that true friends love all time, through thick and thin, good times and adversity. It is the unfriendly person who pursues selfish ends (Prov. 18:1).

Proverbs 18:24 instructs that “a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” We don’t need an entourage, we need friends in our lives we can count on (NIV).

And Proverbs 19 verses 4 and 7 give us the dire warning that friends will flock to us in our time of wealth, but will desert us in our time of poverty, or need. Even though we might go looking for them, they’ll be nowhere to be found.

My husband and I want to be loyal and selfless in our friendships. We want to be the kind of friends who stick by others when they are down. We don’t want to be selfish. We want to believe in our friends. Given that, these passages exonerated our decision. We had been right to lend that money. But I remembered the rest of our story as I continued to read.

We trusted we were in common agreement with our friends that it was a loan. Over time, their circumstances changed, but we never saw the promised repayment.

The disappointment we experienced when our friends reneged on their word was crushing. It led to multiple, heart-rending conversations over dinner. How should we handle this? What should we say? Ought we continue to wait? We had an expectation of repayment that went unmet. Maybe our friends forgot? We never said anything, so maybe they hopefully assumed we had forgotten?

Proverbs 17:9 says that when we cover an offense, we promote love. But if we repeat the matter, we’ll separate friendships. We became living examples of this reality as we rehashed this scenario over dinner. We dwelt on the faults, failures, and shortcomings of our friends. Distance grew between us, and our friendship eroded, eventually ending. Disappointment slowly poisoned our hearts against our friends, fulfilling the promise of Proverbs 18:19, “an offended brother [friend] is more unyielding than a fortified city, and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel” (NIV).

Maybe this is why the wisdom of Proverbs 17:18 leapt out at me. “A man lacking in judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor” (NIV 1984). The New Living Translation says the person who does this has no sense.

In its technical application, this verse applies to securing the debt of a friend, making ourselves liable for the repayment to the point of jeopardizing our own security or freedom. We didn’t help them buy a car by co-signing a loan or anything like that, but we did shake hands over a pledge. We struck a bargain. And, according to this passage, that made us the ones without any sense. We were the ones lacking in judgment. Not our friends. Us.

That’s harsh.

But true. We had done something that God’s wise Word counsels against and had dealt with the consequences. Our hearts hardened. Our attitudes became distrustful. For a long time, the poison of our own actions festered, tainting our ability to see future, similar situations with proper perspective. We became the unfriendly, selfish people we didn’t want to be.

Lending does not usher us into God’s presence. Giving does.

God’s life-giving word was not the foundation of that first decision, but it has informed our future decisions and transformed our perspective. A thousand dollars is still a lot of money, and we weigh these decisions carefully, but if we can afford to lend it, we can afford to give it. Free and clear. No obligations. No expectations.

Choosing to give from one’s resources as a gift lives into all of the counsel in the friendship passages of Proverbs. It honors and protects your relationships, keeps you together through thick and thin, and lets the other person know that that they, and not their possessions, are what you value. When we give freely, there are no chains of disappointment or resentment to bind our hearts and minds. No walls are built. Love wins.

Best of all, when we give freely, we are most like God.

Denise Roberts loves doing life with her husband, Blake, morning snuggles with her one-hundred-pound chocolate Lab, French fries, and Chick-fil-A lemonade. She’s an empty-nester mom who prays she didn’t mess up her kids too badly. Her greatest joy is writing about her experiences when Jesus steps on her toes, picks her up, and dusts her off so others can discover him at the intersection of faith and life for themselves. Connect with her at www.deniseroberts.org.

Photograph © Sharon McCutcheon, used with permission