Maplewood Cottage Home-Lessons

• Jul. 28, 2007 - Credit and Loans and Trust

A quote from one of my posts Three years ago my dh made x amount of money and if one would make a graph of the decline by the end of this year it would show I am almost certain nearly a $10,000.00 annual drop. So in essence we've lost  $20,000 or more in income over the last few years. This is working faithfully at the same employment for a five year period of time. The first 3 years working up to a good stable pay from starting wages, to buying our first home, and then to a steady decline. It is so crucial to show our children to not depend on money or even job stability in making many decisions. What I mean is let the LORD be the guide in all things. Being a good steward of what He has entrusted you with is important. But that can become an idol in itself constantly worrying over keeping your money or even how to best share your money can become a type of obsession. Just hanging on to wise financial principals really isn't realistically the key to stability either because many things can change in a short time. So where is the key to balance? I think looking at what the Lord has going on in your life, what he is teaching you, what your current priorities are, the desires in your heart for the future all this and more has an important part in our finances. As we mature as christians we will often make rather large shifts in our thinking in different areas. A couple that thought they'd have maybe two children for instance will make some big changes in life when they allow the Lord to bless them with number 3,4, or 5. And what adjustments have to be be made to allow more growth in family size or realize that mom just doesn't have the strength to do ALL the cost saving things that she 'could' do. Also the unforeseen can make a huge impact on our lives. We don't know what will happen next on the grand adventure of LIFE .... Don't assume just because you can handle that home improvement loan you will be able to in the future. It is wise to keep expenditures to what is necessary for basic living. Yes, if you need a bathtub or  a roof repair by all means don't let matters get worse cuz you're just too proud to ask for help or  don't 'believe' in getting loans. Or if your kids are having major problems from being cooped up in a small trailer or apartment you may need to make an expensive move. I am big on trying to prevent problems. An example would be our physical health. We can live on a diet of x but what is our quality of life is our health being threatened by overly frugal grocery shopping? How often are we going to the doctor. And really even this example is limited because some just simply have major health issues that they have little control over. Again wisdom! But most things can and should be saved up for if the Lord provides for 'it' then you can have more peace about the expense involved in acquiring it. Often we get freebies in live we never dreamed of just because the Lord wants us to have something to carry out HIs purposes in our lives. Mike was talking about how he wouldn't mind using a bike to run simple in town errands but he had no bike and no money to acquire one. We noticed a garage sale around the corner and avoided it for a few days not wanting to be tempted by investing in any great deals we thought we shouldn't pass up. I'd wanted to make an offer on a men's bike for mike that I could see from the street marked as 30.00 but really we didn't have the money for that. Well we were taking a family walk and went that way as Mike was with us and he'd be able to help me not buy something we shouldn't! Well when we approached it appeared they were packing up in the middle of the afternoon! My husband asked if they were still selling and the man said NO! BUT YOU CAN TAKE ANYTHING YOU WANT! ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT THOSE BIKES! I asked them to repeat  themselves as the couple had spoke at the same time and spoke about the exact thing that we had our eyes on. Apparently they'd done so well that they just wanted to be thankful for that and move on to more important projects with the rest of their weekend. We met them as neighbors, were given some useful items, stuffed animals for the kids, and some edu books as the lady is a teacher. So Mike now is the owner of an older ten speed bike. Can we question the trust we can have in the Lord to provide? Yes, but do we have need to? NO!!!!!!

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