The Ragamuffin Who Gave It All Away

In the 1990s, Rich Mullins was one of the most successful artists in Christian music. His song "Awesome God" became an anthem sung in churches worldwide, and his royalties could have afforded him a comfortable life. Instead, Mullins made a decision that baffled the industry. He asked his accountant to pay him only the average American salary — around $24,000 a year — and funnel everything else to charity. He never even saw the royalty statements.

Mullins left Nashville and moved to a hogan on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, where he taught music to children. He wore jeans and no shoes. He drove an old Jeep. He once told an interviewer, "If you give to God what you can't keep to gain what you can't lose, that's not a sacrifice. That's an investment."

When Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 at age forty-one, friends discovered he had been giving away far more than anyone realized, quietly and without fanfare — exactly as Jesus described in Matthew 6:3, where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Most of us sing about surrender on Sunday morning. Rich Mullins signed the check on Monday. The Almighty doesn't ask us to perform generosity for an audience. He invites us to release what we're gripping so tightly that our knuckles have gone white — and to trust that open hands receive more than clenched fists ever could.