23 – Money

There are some great books and study materials on how to manage your finances. This chapter won’t tell you very much about financial management. Our focus in this chapter is how to exercise faith, obedience, mutual respect and good communication in handling your finances. Frankly, we’d rather see you make bad financial decisions in ways that preserve mutual respect and build your relationship with each other, than make sound decisions in ways that bring conflict and disrespect into your marriage.
Our materialistic American culture tends to teach us to earn all we can and spend all or even more than we earn. However, the Bible teaches us a balance between work and rest, and a balance between consuming, saving, and giving. The Bible says a lot about finances, not because finances are that important, but because your use of finances reflects what is in your heart and your heart is important.
Here are some important keys for dealing with money:
Trust - In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said, “Give us today our daily bread.” We need to develop a simple trust in God based on the understanding that He is the one who provides for us. We should eliminate “disaster” language from our homes, such as saying, “If I lose my job, we’ll all starve.” We should cultivate an expectation in our homes that we will have what we need when we need it, because God will provide it.
Contentment – Trusting God leads to contentment. There are many things we could buy, that we can do just as well without.
Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
Nurture contentment in your family by the way you talk, spending more time thanking God for what you have than you do talking about other stuff you wish you had.
Honoring God – Everything you have actually belongs to God. The sooner you fully realize that, the more peace and contentment you will experience.
We believe in putting God first by giving 10% of our income to our local church. This is called tithing. I know that people can argue their way out of tithing by viewing it as an Old Testament requirement, but we’ve never met anyone who has practiced it faithfully with a right attitude who didn’t see the blessings that God promised in the Old Testament.
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:10)
We don’t view tithing as a legal requirement, but as a simple discipline. It is like kindergarten in the life of faith. God promises blessings you can see. I have seen families move from constant financial turmoil to financial peace after they took this simple step of faith. Putting God first in this way will move you away from an attitude of self reliance and toward an attitude of trust and obedience.
Generosity – The Bible teaches us to give to those in need. This is something you should practice as a family.
He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28)
Respect for Each Other – The way we use our money reveals what we value. As married couples, we are taught to put a high value on each other. We should consider the needs, thoughts, and feelings, of the whole family in the way we use our finances. This can be much more challenging than merely creating a budget. It requires communication and compassion.
Managing our finances in a way that treats others in the family with respect will often feel like we are juggling many balls at once. Dad wants a new set of golf clubs. Mom wants to repaint the house. Bobby needs braces. Sally wants to go to church camp. We said we were going to take a vacation this year, but we don’t have anything saved up for it. No one said this was going to be easy, but communicating love and preserving mutual respect is an essential principle in how you choose among your many options.
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees (Matthew 15:3-6) who were governing their lives by a simple principle – that giving to God is more important than anything else. With this principle they had concluded that if they had given generously to the Lord, they could ignore their parents when they had a need. Jesus shows that giving to God doesn’t relieve you from taking care of other people in your life.
Talk – There are marriages that would experience a surge of romance and improved communication by a husband and wife sitting down at the kitchen table and working together to develop a budget. The management of your finances is a great opportunity to practice communication and mutual respect, because your priorities may be very different from each other. As you work through things, you will have the opportunity to show each other your care for each other.
Perhaps some men or women fear discussing finances because they know their spouse can think of many more things to spend money on than they will ever have the money for. Some people may feel safer living with just enough money to cover essentials, so there is never a need or opportunity to talk about anything else.
Even if you have dreams that would take much more money than you ever expect to have, we’d encourage you to talk about them. Consider together what your priorities should be, what can wait for another year, and what can be put off indefinitely.
Talk About It – Do you feel peace about your finances? Do you feel that everyone in the family is being valued in the way you manage your finances?