My Love, Hate Relationship With Money – Part Two

I have done several significant things with money in my life.

1) Blown every cent I can get on pointless, self destructive things. Accumulated huge debt and gambled away large sums of money. For a long time I was almost a carbon copy of my father but then I met my wife and began to change. I realize that there are still attitudes about money that I have that are left over from the old me. I am afraid of being financially successful.

2) Before I got married, I taught private lessons after work ( 3-4 times a week) The money was very good and I used it to save up for my wedding. After we got married, the money was still good (LOL) so I kept doing it. When my wife got pregnant, the money from private lessons was essential. After my daughter was born, it seemed more essential. One day I left for work before my daughter woke up. When I got home in the afternoon, she was sleeping. I showered and changed and went to teach privates. By the time I got home, she was asleep for the night. I called my private students and told them I would be finishing at the end of the month. I PUT MY FAMILY TIME BEFORE FINANCIAL SECURITY AND ALWAYS WILL.

3) My wife and I went through the mental wringer trying to decide what to do as our 2 year rental contract was expiring. We looked at moving closer to the school I work at ( http://www.citahati.org/ ) and struggled when we found out that there was no way we could get a bank loan as I was the sole wage earner and a foreign citizen, therefore there was no way for us to buy a house. We were looking at paying 2 years rent in advance (the common custom here) and throwing all that money away on rent. BUT GOD IS A GOOD GOD, He answered our prayers and we were able to begin paying off a house. Completely above our understanding but God did it. It meant that we were paying 40% of our income on house payments. The next thing we did was buy a car on hire purchase. There goes another 25%. So before we had paid for milk, nappies, immunization, water, electricity etc. 65% of our income was gone on house and car payments. BUT WE TRUSTED GOD. Maybe the car was our own stupidity and God didn’t intend us to have it BUT HE MADE THAT OK TOO. We had never thought of how long we would be paying most of our income into the house and car. Things were very, very tight and we often had to juggle bills over several months. BUT I still didn’t sell my family time by going back to teaching privates. When my new contract came around, my wife and I were saying how great it would be if my salary went up 5%. How it would take the pressure off. I called my wife straight after I received my new contract with a raise of 30% !!

4) The last significant thing I have done with money was in the past few weeks. I am determined to be disciplined and not feel regret because we often pay only a portion of our tithe because we fear there will not be enough money left. I have organized for a savings account for my daughters. We are paying extra off our loan and we will put our tithe at the top of our budgeting column. God comes first !! We may struggle financially, we may not be blessed with lots of money to travel and buy a new hot water heater BUT we will do what we know is right with our money. Be disciplined and ask God what to do with it.

Look for future testimonies about how God looks after my family because we put Him first. Amen

God Bless You

My Love, Hate Relationship With Money – Part One

I fell I have a serious hurdle to overcome, I have a love / hate relationship with money. I think this relationship is seeded in my childhood experiences of watching my family suffer because of money problems. Another thing that has led to this problem coming to my attention is that I want to live for God so much that I don’t want to want or need money.

I understand that hating money and not wanting money is me taking the easy way out. What I really need to do is be more disciplined with money and actually learn to receive and use money graciously. When people want to give me money to help with ministry work I actually feel guilty. I don’t want people to think I have ulterior motives for talking to them and that I am always trying to get money out of them.

The key to me overcoming my problem is to take control of my money through being disciplined and learning to trust God more on financial matters. If I was single, I assume this would be easy. I love to give money away and use money to bless others but now that I have 2 children, house and car payments, a roof that needs replacing, an air conditioner that broke down, a hot water heater that hasn’t worked in 2 years (we heat water on the stove for showers) and other responsibilities, I can’t run from the fact that I have to make money work for me.

I diligently budget leading up to every salary and the story my budget tells me is that after we pay our bills, we can barely afford to get one of the list of things that need fixing fixed and then will be living on a shoestring budget for the month hoping that the nappies and milk last.

Everyone says that this is normal for ‘1st time home owners’ BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IT !! My God is an awesome God, I know I do things which displease him with money and the main one is not trusting him enough. I fear money, I fear it will lead me astray and my God does not give me a spirit of fear so I know this is not right.

I BELIEVE those who serve God should be paid better than rock stars and those who sell sex, drugs and rock and roll should be paupers. That is not the world we live in, the world’s finances are fickle BUT I am not. I love God and I want to serve him in every way. My finances are in His hands and I WILL DO the things I know he wants me to do but have always been too lazy / scared to do.

See Part Two