God's Job vs. My Job (from Money for women only)

I've come across a lot of women who were unable to join us for our morning Bible study but would like to get the teaching, but I'm not doing video or recording it right now. So I had this idea that I would blog my lessons each week and see how that goes. (This does not include the take-home Bible studies or the homework--just the "message.")


Before we get started on talking about finances, I have to encourage all of you ladies out there (and husbands too!) that communication with your spouse is key when it comes to finances. You may be learning a lot and you may have a major breakthrough in your perception, but our spouses are not going to get it if we beat them over the head with it, make accusations or generalizations. All marriages could benefit from improved communication skills of the husband and the wife--all relationships, really. What you learn from this course, take it, share it with your husbands, but remember that the changes we're after here are initially for YOU. We'll dance and celebrate when you're both on the same page, though!!!

For all of you that are married, I'm sure you've already experienced the stress that comes in the area of personal finances--mostly when there's not enough money to go around and debt begins to pile up. These financial issues cause a huge strain on a marriage and are the leading cause of divorce in our nation, but we want to combat this force with the knowledge and understanding of the word of God and with prayer.

In fact, one of the reasons we deal poorly with money is that we don't know what our role in finances really is--or that there is even a division of roles. Most of us have not had the job training for this and we get totally mixed up by taking on responsibilities that don't belong to us. God has designed a system for us in which he has a job and we have a totally different job--want to know what they are? Keep reading....

All throughout Scripture, God lines out three main categories that He takes on as His job:

God is the Owner (of everything)

• Psalm 24:1-2 says "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters."

OK, everything.... that's so incredibly huge, so general, so big and unfathomable in begins to fade out of my mind before it sinks in and well, I just forget and don't think about it anymore....it's just TOO big. But wait! He's not just the owner of everything in general, He says in Haggai 2:8 that "The silver is mine and the gold is mine," he says He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the animals in the field, the little sparrow, he owns you and me. He says that the land is His and that it will not be sold permanently because, really, God never transferred over ownership to anyone. You may have that silver and gold in your possession, but it still BELONGS to God and always will.

So we understand that the first aspect of God's job is to be the owner of everything, let's look at the second aspect.

God is the Provider (of everything)

Picture a little infant. He can't feed, clothe, shelter or care for himself and is totally dependant on the care and provision of his parents. God looks up on in much the same way--as His little ones who need Him to provide for everything we need, and He's really the only one that can do that kind of job for us. In fact, God wants to be the one to do that for you and delights when you ask Him.

• Philippians 4:19 says "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." [emphasis mine]

His glorious riches---God's provision never runs out. There is nothing that He can't and won't do for you when it comes to providing for your needs. Can He not then afford to provide you with food, necessary clothing and basic shelter? Our God is not poor and does not have to ration His supplies--His supplies never end!

If God is the Owner of everything and the Provider of everything, what is the third aspect of God's job that we need to be aware of?

God is the Ruler (of everything) He's in control.

In this sense, God is like the President, only the President of the universe with Super-Duper power. We read in 1 Chronicles 29:11-12:
"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.[He is WAY cool! Everything belongs to Him.]
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. [He's the KING--He is the highest in the chain of command and there is no one like Him] Wealth and honor come from you [We receive money and respect or recognition by others from Him]; you are the ruler of all things.[There is nothing beyond His rule] In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. [He has the power to raise our rank, power, or character and to give us strength to do what He calls us to.]

There is nothing that happens that He doesn't know about, that He doesn't allow. He's sovereign and in control.

I want to share a story about how I came to understand this truth about God's job. Back in 2003, my husband, Gabriel and I were working diligently to squeeze out every penny we could in order to pay down a huge pile of debt by working with our own plan and budget. It was going okay, but Gabriel's estimation of the time it would take to be free of the debt was SEVEN YEARS! That in itself was incredibly depressing. So I would look in every area of our budget to see where we might be able to cut back to make it go a little faster.

We had bought a small, 1200 sqft home in Duncanville in July of 1998 when it was just the tree of us, Gabriel, Kate and myself. Kate was only 1-1/2 but she needed room to play and since I am a stay-at-home mom, she needed a place to run and play during the day. The house was small and not in the best of neighborhoods, but the back yard--oh, it was wonderful! It had a huge mulberry tree that shaded almost the entire yard; it was flat, fenced in, had a covered porch, and almost immediately, we had a swing set and sand box all set up for Kate and then Jacob when he came along in 2000. Becca arrived in the summer of 2002 and shortly thereafter--the minivan.

In the summer of 2003 we were staying with my in-laws in Tennessee for a week as our "vacation" in order to spend time with family (and we couldn't afford to really do anything else). My father-in-law is a CPA and happened to have a copy of Larry Burkett's The World's Easiest Guide to Finances on one of his shelves. I picked it up and devoured it, especially the chapters on how to save money and ways to pay down debt. I learned to look closer at your auto insurance policy and call around, cut coverage here and there, ways to use coupons for groceries, freeze some foods after you buy them on sale to have for later, turning back your thermostat in the winter and raising it in the summer, etc. Those were all great tips I would take back home with me and use them right away. However, there was one thing Burkett said that looked impossible to me--he said that if you have equity in the house (meaning you can sell it for more than you owe on it), you could sell the house, pay off debt with the profit and then rent an apartment while you save money to buy a house in the future.

The math was all there. Yeah, that would work, but.... what about the big back yard? An apartment with three children? It was pretty crowded with just one--how would we fit in a 800 sqft apartment with crying children? "No, no, no, no. That's just not going to work for us," I thought. So I decided to keep focusing on cutting back on expenses to try to pay down the debt. How absurd...sell the house... sure, that would work for a couple who's kids have already left the nest, but not for a family with a bunch of young children. Not us.

We returned home from our vacation, and I began to research the Internet for more of Larry Burkett's books and Bible studies. I was wanting to go through one, and since I happen to lead Bible studies (for women) at the church I attended, I thought I would get the leader's guide and do it there. I found one that looked like exactly what I wanted--one that showed results of life change. It was called the Crown Financial Ministries Biblical Financial Study for small groups. That's a mouthful. The problem was, I had to go through it before I could lead it, so I searched for a group that was beginning in the next month or so. Most in the area had already started or were not having the study that semester, but I did find one, way across town, that was starting the very next week and it had room for me. I had a real sense of urgency to get in RIGHT NOW--I couldn't wait until January when most churches offered new groups, so I started going, and the first week covered this very topic. God's part vs. my part.

I learned that God is the owner, provider and ruler of everything. Everything. That means that God is the owner of our minivan, our children, our money, our house, and yes, our backyard.

That got the wheels in my head turning. If God owns the house and backyard and everything else, then I own nothing. I learned that the house was not mine to do with as I pleased and if God wanted us to be out of debt and selling the house was His plan, then why not? So I talked with Gabriel about the idea and we decided to pray about it and do some research.

Gabriel and I had been praying for some time that he would be released from his current job and be given something different that enabled him to use more of his skills in mathematics or for him to be able to go back to school to get a master's degree in math. This seemed like a good opportunity--sell the house, go live with one of the set of parents while earning a little as an apprentice to a professor and living below the poverty level. Sounded like so much fun to me, but I said I was open to it all the while confessing that I really didn't want that.

It wasn't long after that discussion that we found the apprenticeship was not an option because of a lack of certain classes, so Gabriel asked, "Do you think we still need to sell the house?" as if the apprenticeship was the reason we were going to sell it in the first place. Well, we decided to spend some more time praying about it and we got some godly counsel from an elder of our church. One night, I had been spending some time in prayer out on the couch while everyone else had already gone to bed. I really wanted an answer before we made this huge decision, but I didn't hear anything. I then decided to go to bed, and as soon as I lay down to go to sleep, I heard God say three words, "Sell the house." (Not audibly, of course.) I told Gabriel the next day and then we had the realtor out with the camera and for sale sign.

We prayed for God's provision for a buyer for the house for 3 months, worked hard to keep it clean (with three kids at home) and ready to show at a moment's notice, painted and fixed what needed repairing. God provided and we were able to pay off all our remaining debt and have a little left over, and we moved in with my parents' house with no idea of what God had in store for us next.

So, in realizing that God is the owner, provider and ruler of everything, even the backyard, what is our job? What are we to do while God does everything else? Are we to be loafers and lazies that can't do anything for themselves? No, we DO have a job, a specific job. We're to be God's managers. The managers of his money and property while it's in our possession and not just any managers, faithful managers.

• 1 Corinthians 4:2 says "Now a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful."

We don't own anything, but we have been given money and possessions to manage for God while we are here on earth. And, because he's still the owner, we need to handle everything for the best interest of the owner, God, and the company, God's kingdom. But what does it mean to be faithful? What do we have to do?

If you joined us in our last study on the fruit of the Spirit, we learned a little about faithfulness. One of the things I took away with me from that is that in order to be faithful, we have to have faith in (and act on) who God is rather than what He does. And we find out about who He is through His word--the things he does change all the time, but He does not change. His character is always the same that that's what we put our faith in. If we have faith that God is good and fulfills His promises then we can trust Him to take care of us and do what He asks us to do.

He tells us what He expects of us, also, in His word, and we will be learning more and more over the course of these next nine weeks what that entails and how to apply it to our lives today, but let's look in Luke to find out what the big deal is....

• Luke 12:42-48 [Jesus is speaking to the disciples and crowds and giving a parable about being ready for the master's return and Peter interrupts him by saying "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone? this is Jesus' reply:]
  

"The Lord answered, 'Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
That servant who knows his master's will and does nto get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Jesus is going to return one day, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we don't know. How are you handling the owner's money and possessions? Are you ready for His return?

We see also in Luke 16:10-13 that how we handle our money directly affects our relationship with Jesus. Following God's word in your finances will help you grow in your trust and friendship with the Lord.

• "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Here is the second part of my story:

We moved in to my parents' two story house around the first of February 2004 not knowing where God was going to put us--we were in limbo, you could say. Not long after the closing on the house, we found out we were expecting baby number four. Let me tell you, I was scared a little bit but thankful Gabriel still had a job and that God had it all under control.

That July, we were looking at apartments near the University of Texas at Arlington where Gabriel was to be taking classes in the fall, and my father passed away unexpectedly. I knew right then God had us there for a reason. I was moved when I realized that God allowed me to have time with my father those last six months and my children to get to know their grandfather. I remember my father had just taught my son, Jacob (who was four at the time) to stand on his shoulders (my father was over 6'2"), and they laughed and had lots of fun together. I felt God had us there to be a comfort to my mother and help her run the house during her mourning and that little Nate's arrival would be a great distraction during the holidays that would be coming, so we decided to remain there indefinitely and stopped looking at apartments.

Two weeks after my father's passing, God released Gabriel from his job. Yea! This was an answer to prayer! Not exactly what we were hoping for--there was no job waiting for him this time and we had no other income, only what was left over after paying off our debt.

Listen to this, we had no home of our own, we were living with my mother. My father had just died, and my husband, the only bread-winner, had just lost his job, and we had our fourth baby on the way. Would this not send any normal person into a bit of a depression if not clinical depression? But, you see, we had no debt, no house payment, no bills piling up because God led us out of all of that before we were hit with all of these trials. That's why I had to get in that Crown small group study RIGHT THEN so that I would understand what God wanted me to let go of to be where God wanted me/us to be in July that next year.

Gabriel received two months of wages as a severance package, and he only had to wait one month before God provided him with another job out in east Plano. We made a profit from his layoff. We remained with my mother through January of '05 and then were able to purchase a modest home in Wylie, TX, to be closer to where Gabriel was working and we have been blessed in so many ways since then--especially with our new friends and family but also new spiritual growth and opportunities to serve we would have never dreamed of--some we had!

All of this because we recognized God's job is not our job and we needed to get our hands out of what he was supposed to be doing--faithfully managing God's money and possessions.


I recommend reading The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. It's a short read, but it gets right to the point. You won't be disappointed but quite possibly convicted. ;)