God has shown me an interesting thing this week. Not through any major life happening - just an eye opening word to my spirit. My husband always keeps a stash of cash hidden. I rarely ask how much is in the stash and rarely get into the stash. But, I know it's there. I depend on my husband to always have it there. Knowing this, sometimes - well most of the time, my spending habits are rather sloppy and my budgeting discipline has been non existent. God, for quite some time, has been prompting me to pay better attention to our finances, to be disciplined, and while I have acknowledged the prompting - I have done very very very little to act on the prompting. So I spend, without a budget, a little too much here, a little extravagantly there, and there is nothing wrong with 3 or 4 $4.00 lattes in a week - right? And inevitably we end up in a bind - but that's okay because Bobby always saves us with the stash. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! My husband isn't stashing to save my undisciplined hiney - he is stashing to SAVE. What an insane amount of stress and pressure I put on him to bail us out because my spending is careless. As a side note - does my husband spend as God would have him to? Well, let me be quite frank here - it is none of my business if my husband is following God's personal promptings and guidance for him - that is between God and my husband. You know the plank in your own eye scripture....Yes, pay attention to what God is telling you and don't whine "But he gets to do it" Okay, back to my point. God is our ultimate provider - not our husbands. Our husbands are here for us to love and to be loved by and to enjoy and grow together. We all know marriage is HARD - so why make it more difficult. I would rather work with my husband in the area of our finances rather than dumping on him when my negligent spending finally catches up. I would rather lean on God together with my husband - trusting God together to be OUR provider. That's what God wants us to do! He wants to provide, but we must trust Him to do so, straighten up our own sinful deeds that would block the blessing of provision, and then stand. I like to envision my hubby and I standing, holding hands and smiling. We all know when we "discuss" money - this is usually not the pose or expression we have.
This week I made a budget for the next two weeks - it's all I could grasp and it's UGLY. But, God is prompting me to look at the budget and the checkbook daily - so He is walking me through this daily. He is honoring what I have done and what I continue to do. I was able to show my husband our SCARY budget last night and we did not argue. I let him off the hook - I told him I didn't expect him to figure it out, I just wanted him to know where we are standing. I also told him I was finally listening to God - thus the budget - and that I am praying about and trusting God to provide. This was a much nicer "discussion" to have regarding our finances. It was good - and I don't think either of us are worried, rather we are focused and full of faith.
Hoping this speaks to someone!
Lots of love to all,
D. J.
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