Tonight, I’m doing something I absolutely hate. My husband and I are working on a
budget. I imagine that most of you feel
the same way. It’ kind of like taxes and doctors, we dislike them and breathe a
sigh of relief when they are done. Truth be told; we really don’t enjoy working
on a budget at all. Yet it is one of the
necessary components in knowing exactly how much you have and what you can
spend. If indeed we are responsible to God for how we handle the resources that
God has given us, then we need a clear picture. One piece of the puzzle that
can bring the whole puzzle into focus is a budget. It allows you to see and compare what you
spend with what you have. Sometimes as
I’ve done a budget and looked at what I saw, I could see that the problem was
little things that add up. I realized
that the problem was that I forgot the advice I had been given long ago, little
things add up. As we do a budget, we
often see little things that we miss because we don’t think about them or we
fail to see the correlation between income and outgo. If a budget is so great,
why don’t more people make a budget? I
imagine that, for some, it’s the same reason I don’t go to a doctor too often
and I cringe when I walk into the tax office.
I’m afraid of what they’ll say.
As I write this I would love to tell you that my husband and I always do
a budget and we stick to the budget, but we don’t. We do a budget from time, and we are not
always disciplined enough to stay with it.
We still do a budget because we need to get a complete picture of our
finances from time to time. Even if we
aren’t disciplined enough to stay with a budget; it allows us to “fine tune”
our spending. We can’t possibly be good overseers of what God has given without
a complete picture of our finances. Not
only will a budget allow us to be faithful with the resources God has lavished
on us, but it may alleviate the money stress by helping you to take action
rather than simply seeing a problem. God
wants you to manage your finances, so they don’t manage you.
Thank you God for how you lead us. Like a shepherd leading his sheep. Sometimes through the words you spoke in the Bible, your written word. at other times, it was the wise words from friends, coworkers,or neighbors spoken at just the right time. Still other times it was a gentle tug, a whisper to our heart to move in one direction or another; intuition or a sixth sense that one way or another was right or wrong Yet, when I listened and obeyed I found the way was clear, distinct and easy to follow. You never leave us to guess which way to go. ...
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