Fear is persistent and sneaky. Fear will do anything to convince us we don’t have enough.
Day 29
Trust in the LORD with all your heart;
and he will keep your ways straight.
Know him in all your paths,
don’t rely on your own intelligence.
Proverbs 3:5-6
I confess that trusting the Lord with all my heart and thinking around spending seems a bit much to me—at least this is what I’m tempted to believe. After all, God is busy caring for people all over the world who are experiencing great crises, or who are at pivotal moments of spiritual growth, right? God is simply too busy working through the power of the Holy Spirit to offer prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace to people all over the world and at every point of human history to be bothered with my questions about how I should be spending my money. So instead of trusting God, I think that maybe I should handle these issues myself to give God a break. Have you ever felt the same way?
The themes of trust and reliance in Proverbs 3 remind us very much of those found in Matthew 22:37-38 when Jesus offers the first of the great commandments: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” Christians believe that loving and trusting God with all our heart and mind (intelligence) are centrally important to our journey of faith, and yet we are sometimes reticent to do so related to our spending and other aspects of our finances. Whenever I see hesitance to trust God surface in someone’s spiritual life, I ask questions. And the first that I ask is whether there is some unacknowledged idol that is inhibiting trust. Money can easily become such an idol. We are accustomed to thinking that it’s our money, and therefore we spend our money in the way that we see fit. We assume that the God who created the known and unknown subatomic particles that comprise creation is somehow uninterested in the details of our spending.
The first thing to acknowledge is that everything we have is a gift from God—even our hard-earned financial capacities. From our ability to generate income to the income itself, all of this is a gift from God. The gifts of God are meant to make us generous. We respond to all of God’s mercy and grace with humble generosity out of thankfulness for what was first given to us in Christ Jesus. God’s grace reminds us and gives us the strength to attune our hearts and minds to trust in the Lord and to allow the Lord to direct our paths—even, and perhaps especially, in the area of finances and spending when we can be tempted to trust in our own understanding rather than trust God to guide us along the path. When we allow God to guide us, not only does our spending become wise and more beneficial to us, but it also becomes directed toward others as we seek to follow the second portion of the great commandment that is to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). We do all of this so that God might be glorified on earth in our hearts, minds, and actions, as God is glorified in heaven.
May the Lord guide our hearts and minds so that what we earn, what we save, and what we spend can be used for the upbuilding of God’s kingdom, in Christ’s holy name.
Rev. Justin Coleman
Saving Grace
Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being
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Scripture quotations are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
