Vending Machine or Money Machine?

Do you every feel like you are being used as a vending machine for money?

Every day we are bombarded with requests for us to donate to different causes - secular charities and Christian organisations all putting their hand out for more and more money.

I realise that programs, research and everything else costs money and that the money must come from somewhere; but it's kind of like each person is a vending machine:

Push button B3 for ...; C7 for ...; D5 for ...; and on and on ... more, more, MORE!

If you donate once, they keep sending you more requests. You ask to be taken off mailing lists and that works for a while, then suddenly they start sending you requests for donations again.

People, we need money to live on too!

What bothers me the most is that requests for donations to save animals, trees and rocks are more numerous than requests to help people. Sure those things are important, but isn't a person of more value than a tree?

Then there's the latest cause or location and everyone seems to be on the bandwagon for that. Human trafficking has been going on for a very long time (think about the slave trade during the time of John Newton and William Wilberforce), but its suddenly become a cause that everyone is creating a fuss about. Why now? What was it that suddenly made people take notice and want to do something to stop it?

Then there is a location. My local church seems to be obsessed with Asia. Of course there is a great need for missionaries in Asia, but there is also a great need in many other parts of the world as well. Countries that once sent hundreds of missionaries now have gone away from God and need people to go there to remind them about God.

I'm not saying I don't give money to a variety of things, I do, but I'd rather donate when and where I want to rather than being pushed into giving to something that has not been laid on my heart.