where's my check?
I hear this about once a month. It's not mean-spirited. Actually, the person to whom the check gets written has been quite understanding about the furlough thing. Still, writing that check hurts. It's someplace between 20-25% of my monthly take home pay (before overtime). It's hard to write that check sometimes, but necessary. Sin has a cost, and the sin of divorce in my life has cost me plenty of treasure. That treasure may be significant but it's small when compared to the incalculable damage done to my children because of it. You could never put a price on what I lost with my kids.
I was at a mens' conference and one of the speakers said something there that I was really holding onto. Following the ways of the world, when I was a bigger fool than I am now, I let the evil one take a lot from me. God allowed me to keep some things but the evil one took the things that mattered most, along with a great amount of treasure along the way. The message was that God would give back what the evil one took and that would lead to a life of abundance where one could be a blessing to others.
Me! Pick ME! Look, I so want that in my life. One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Joel 2:25 (look it up!). That message goes hand in glove with that verse and I so want it to be me. I'm waiting on the big check....
It's not coming.
Just because I wanted that message to apply to me doesn't mean that it will in ways I think it ought. Things are defrosting with the children, but it'll take the rest of my life to try and have a relationship with them. I will never get back what I missed out on. No amount of treasure could ever make up for that. But living from abundance where giving is possible? Sign me up! Fixing things that are busted around here? I'll take two helpings, please.
Again, the big check isn't coming. I don't know how that message is going to apply to my life.
I talked about having to account for every penny I spend. It's really kept me on the straight and narrow. I bought a package of snack cakes from the vending machine at work last Saturday. I spent $1.25. I didn't think about it at the time, but when I spent my last $8 I had (four dollars was change) on gas last night hoping it would be enough to get me there and home, that insignificant purchase five days ago sure looked important. It could have made the difference between getting home from work at two in the morning or running out of gas.
Yes, it was that close.
My week should have been focused on giving guidance and visiting the sick. Those were my homework assignments from my class last week. I managed to accomplish half of what I wanted to. Instead, though, God had other plans for me and it all revolved around money.
The Bible says a lot about money and this week I needed to hear a lot about money. I kind of felt I was getting out of step about waiting for something I wanted and kept asking God for. In my situation, what I thought I needed was a big check. Maybe not so much, because what I got was 1 Timothy 6. Things seemed to be getting a little rocky along the financial path and I stopped and asked for something else, which was some guidance. I flipped the Bible open to 1 Timothy 6. It started there. But even in reading the passage once, I missed the important line I needed. It happens sometimes.
To bolster the point, I got it again in a book I'm reading. There's a chapter in there about giving. It made me realize that even in the dire straits I think I'm in at any given moment, I've been blessed beyond measure. I think of myself as a giving person and sometimes even that's got me into a bit of trouble because I've put the cart before the horse more than once. I think it's easy, though, to expect something in return.
I don't see that happening the way myself looks at things.
I've read that verse from 1 Timothy 6 quite a few times this week. I will keep reading it daily until it sinks in. The key lesson for me is that godliness is not a path to financial gain. I don't give to get, per-se. I give because it's the right thing to do. I give because much has been given to me and I'm re-focusing on the whys instead of the whats. What that did was cause me to to do two things. One involved some prayer for forgiveness for my own foolish expectations and some praise for the guidance I badly needed.
Which led me to ask this question, which maybe was the right one all along.... "What can I do with what I have?"
I have to start someplace, so that seems like a good jumping in point. I don't have a lot, so what can I do with what I have? I already share my time. I've shared my hut. I try to give what I can, which isn't much. Giving for me is always sacrificial.
And as always happens it seems, I had to spend money I didn't want to on something I had to honestly look at if I needed. In the end, I decided that the computer power supply was a need. So, even with that need, I had to make choices. If it says Mac, two things are generally true. One is that it's gonna cost you. The second is that it's gonna be hard to find.
I had to replace the power supply once when I was TDY. I had to go to a college bookstore to find one. I know the college bookstore at Weber has one. I could have walked over there to pick it up. Or I could have driven to Riverdale and supported a small business that also had one. I chose B. I got to be a blessing to a small business today buy shopping in their store.
It's how I look at things these days. It could have been looked at as a tragedy but instead I got to bless someone else. That wasn't a me thing. It was God working in my life. That little epiphany didn't happen until I started asking questions about what I could do with what I had.
Where we spend our money, I think, is just as important as what we spend it on. Again, I'm starting to ask what I could do.
I also have a thing these days for the poor. The oppressed and me have always been in good company, but the poor, not so much. I mean that. I used to be one of them people that hated rich people because I always wanted to be one. I am rich when judged by the world standard. I have more home than I need and more than 85% of the rest of the population of the planet. I have a bed and a truck to drive. I have food to eat. I have a job to go to that pays very well.
I'm so blessed.
So what's the point? It's not a big check. I don't want the responsibility of being rich. What I want is to move from the problems of the past sins of my life and start living in that abundance. The thing though is that maybe I already am and just didn't know it. I think I tend to equate abundance with financial things. Maybe now I'm asking the right questions, I'll have a better understanding of what that means in God's economy!
Praise God for allowing me to share this with you. Look up the Scriptures I talked about today and let them speak to your heart!
I was at a mens' conference and one of the speakers said something there that I was really holding onto. Following the ways of the world, when I was a bigger fool than I am now, I let the evil one take a lot from me. God allowed me to keep some things but the evil one took the things that mattered most, along with a great amount of treasure along the way. The message was that God would give back what the evil one took and that would lead to a life of abundance where one could be a blessing to others.
Me! Pick ME! Look, I so want that in my life. One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Joel 2:25 (look it up!). That message goes hand in glove with that verse and I so want it to be me. I'm waiting on the big check....
It's not coming.
Just because I wanted that message to apply to me doesn't mean that it will in ways I think it ought. Things are defrosting with the children, but it'll take the rest of my life to try and have a relationship with them. I will never get back what I missed out on. No amount of treasure could ever make up for that. But living from abundance where giving is possible? Sign me up! Fixing things that are busted around here? I'll take two helpings, please.
Again, the big check isn't coming. I don't know how that message is going to apply to my life.
I talked about having to account for every penny I spend. It's really kept me on the straight and narrow. I bought a package of snack cakes from the vending machine at work last Saturday. I spent $1.25. I didn't think about it at the time, but when I spent my last $8 I had (four dollars was change) on gas last night hoping it would be enough to get me there and home, that insignificant purchase five days ago sure looked important. It could have made the difference between getting home from work at two in the morning or running out of gas.
Yes, it was that close.
My week should have been focused on giving guidance and visiting the sick. Those were my homework assignments from my class last week. I managed to accomplish half of what I wanted to. Instead, though, God had other plans for me and it all revolved around money.
The Bible says a lot about money and this week I needed to hear a lot about money. I kind of felt I was getting out of step about waiting for something I wanted and kept asking God for. In my situation, what I thought I needed was a big check. Maybe not so much, because what I got was 1 Timothy 6. Things seemed to be getting a little rocky along the financial path and I stopped and asked for something else, which was some guidance. I flipped the Bible open to 1 Timothy 6. It started there. But even in reading the passage once, I missed the important line I needed. It happens sometimes.
To bolster the point, I got it again in a book I'm reading. There's a chapter in there about giving. It made me realize that even in the dire straits I think I'm in at any given moment, I've been blessed beyond measure. I think of myself as a giving person and sometimes even that's got me into a bit of trouble because I've put the cart before the horse more than once. I think it's easy, though, to expect something in return.
I don't see that happening the way myself looks at things.
I've read that verse from 1 Timothy 6 quite a few times this week. I will keep reading it daily until it sinks in. The key lesson for me is that godliness is not a path to financial gain. I don't give to get, per-se. I give because it's the right thing to do. I give because much has been given to me and I'm re-focusing on the whys instead of the whats. What that did was cause me to to do two things. One involved some prayer for forgiveness for my own foolish expectations and some praise for the guidance I badly needed.
Which led me to ask this question, which maybe was the right one all along.... "What can I do with what I have?"
I have to start someplace, so that seems like a good jumping in point. I don't have a lot, so what can I do with what I have? I already share my time. I've shared my hut. I try to give what I can, which isn't much. Giving for me is always sacrificial.
And as always happens it seems, I had to spend money I didn't want to on something I had to honestly look at if I needed. In the end, I decided that the computer power supply was a need. So, even with that need, I had to make choices. If it says Mac, two things are generally true. One is that it's gonna cost you. The second is that it's gonna be hard to find.
I had to replace the power supply once when I was TDY. I had to go to a college bookstore to find one. I know the college bookstore at Weber has one. I could have walked over there to pick it up. Or I could have driven to Riverdale and supported a small business that also had one. I chose B. I got to be a blessing to a small business today buy shopping in their store.
It's how I look at things these days. It could have been looked at as a tragedy but instead I got to bless someone else. That wasn't a me thing. It was God working in my life. That little epiphany didn't happen until I started asking questions about what I could do with what I had.
Where we spend our money, I think, is just as important as what we spend it on. Again, I'm starting to ask what I could do.
I also have a thing these days for the poor. The oppressed and me have always been in good company, but the poor, not so much. I mean that. I used to be one of them people that hated rich people because I always wanted to be one. I am rich when judged by the world standard. I have more home than I need and more than 85% of the rest of the population of the planet. I have a bed and a truck to drive. I have food to eat. I have a job to go to that pays very well.
I'm so blessed.
So what's the point? It's not a big check. I don't want the responsibility of being rich. What I want is to move from the problems of the past sins of my life and start living in that abundance. The thing though is that maybe I already am and just didn't know it. I think I tend to equate abundance with financial things. Maybe now I'm asking the right questions, I'll have a better understanding of what that means in God's economy!
Praise God for allowing me to share this with you. Look up the Scriptures I talked about today and let them speak to your heart!
what's the book you're reading? (Have fun in class today!)
ReplyDelete