A singular financial principle for the pandemic. Be generous and giving, even now.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to massive shutdowns of businesses and record unemployment. We’ll likely experience the repercussions for years.

A reader asked recently if I’d repeat my past suggestions for managing our personal finances, given that we’re in an economic freefall.

When I looked back at what I’d written before, though, it appeared what I said back then wouldn’t be of much use today.

It was sound advice when I gave it — for instance, living beneath your means, saving consistently and deferring gratification.

All good things to do in normal times. However, we’ve left normal times.

It’s hard to live beneath your means if you now have no means. It’s impossible to save if there’s nothing coming in. You can’t defer gratification if you don’t have enough to pay your rent today.

So I want to talk here about the one financial principle that’s still available to all of us, always.

Some of you might think I’ve gone wacky, and that’s OK. Here goes.

Especially now, the most important personal financial principle is this: Become a generous giver.

Don’t get stingy. Don’t hoard. Open your heart and your hands. Start sowing your bread on the waters, as the Old Testament puts it. Trust God to bring your bread back to you multiplied.

Move out of this world’s economy and into God’s economy. Because, yes, God has his own economy, run by divine laws that supersede our understanding.

Financial rule No. 1 in God’s economy is to give, and let God repay you. It’s a cosmic law that permeates the Bible. Elijah practiced it. Jesus taught it. So did St. Paul.

Find somebody you can help. Now. Do something generous. Do lots of things for lots of people. Make it your mission to help and serve others.

Give a tithe to a church that’s doing good work. Buy groceries for that single mother down the street, then anonymously leave the bags on her stoop.

And remember you don’t need money to bless others.

Cut the church’s grass for free. Call an elderly neighbor and see if you can pick up his heart medicine so he doesn’t have to risk going out. Text a coworker who’s depressed. Send a handmade card to a person who’s lonely.

St. Paul said God, being a gracious giver himself, has a soft spot for those who are givers, too. It pleases God to make his grace abound to them, Paul said, so that they will always have more resources than they need. He gives them an abundance so they can help even more people.

A few days ago, I heard a minister I know—not a mega-preacher, but a small-timer like me—say online that before the Lord gives to us, he generally gives through us.

She was exactly right, in my estimation.

Like a lot of principles in the kingdom of God, this one doesn’t necessarily make sense. It just works. Try it, you’ll see. It’ll make you believe there’s a God.

Somehow, when we get our eyes off ourselves and our problems and start looking out for God’s kingdom and for our neighbors, God seems to smile on us.

Money arrives unexpectedly in the mail. A small business loan opens up. We get a promotion we didn’t apply for. The ravens feed us, as it were.

It doesn’t just happen once, by coincidence. It becomes a way of life. You give. You get. You give more. You receive more. You give even more.

If I had the space I could—and would love to—tell story after story of people I know who’ve seen the most miraculous blessings overtake them once they started sharing.

It’s difficult to talk about this, of course, which is why I usually don’t. TV evangelists have often abused this principle to bilk the gullible, leaving the whole principle with a bad reputation. Send me $10, they promise, and God will give you $1,000.

Well, no. It doesn’t work that way. God isn’t an ATM.

Nonetheless, the underlying spiritual law is true.

I’m not remotely suggesting God wants everybody who serves him to wear a Rolex, drive a Mercedes and live in a McMansion.

We’ve all known tenderhearted, saintly folks who struggled financially (or physically or mentally), maybe their whole lives.

But that’s exactly why God wants to bless you: So you can help them. He wants all of us to show mercy and generosity to one another.

So yes, of course, continue to do the practical things: fill out as many job applications as you can, apply for unemployment benefits, stretch your grocery money.

But while you’re at it, join God’s supernatural plan, too. Move into his economy.

Do something gracious for your church or your neighbor or a stranger. And then see if God doesn’t ease your own burden. I can just about guarantee he will.

Contributing columnist Paul Prather is the pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. He can be reached at pratpd@yahoo.com.