Skip to main content

Doctors and Taxes






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.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Live Fearlessly

                                   As I was driving home today, I passed a person walking on the side of the    road.  Since it was cold, and snowy, I thought I should stop and offer the person a ride.  As I drove on by, I was irritated with myself for not stopping.  I could have and should have but I didn't. Why?  I was scared! Maybe that wouldn't bother you, but I'm willing to bet there are things that make you afraid.  It may be snakes or spiders that send the ticker into  overdrive.  Or maybe it's your job and finances that keep you up at night when you should be resting.  Then again perhaps it's relationships that consume your thoughts and energy.  As followers of God, we know that we are told not to be afraid.  Yet we often are afraid despite everything we know.   As I was driving away from a misse...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tragedy: A Christian Response

I want to start by telling you a story.  We were new parents.  When Our oldest, a son, was about eighteen to twenty months we had another baby, a girl with brown hair and huge eyes.   One day as I went to feed her, my son who may have been two at the time wandered off to another part of the house.  The next thing I heard was a thud.  I grabbed my baby girl and ran to see what happened.  There was my son with a table on top of him.  He had pulled it over on himself and more blood than I had ever seen was running all over.   We put him in the car and dashed for the ER.  It was not a fun trip. He had a skull fracture and many stitches.  Fast forward about fourteen or fifteen years, I’m at a stop light and watch my youngest daughter about ten start across a street on a bike start across a street just as a truck comes around a corner into the path of the bike.  She hit the side of the truck and bounced onto the road....
Post a Comment
Read more

Thank you God for Leading us

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.                                                                                                      ...
Post a Comment
Read more