We are the typical American family, swimming in debt. All of it was accumulated between 2000 and 2006. For six years we spent more than we made. We paid for groceries on credit and still to this day the only piece of furniture that we have bought is our bed and a tv stand. The other bits and pieces in our home have been gifts. We are going to pay the last payment on our car, eight years later thanks to leasing and loans.
Our material life has been built upon the hope that one day we could afford the basics. The problem with that kind of thinking is that once you start making a decent salary, you have this burden of all the things you've acquired on the way there, so you don't actually get to enjoy it at all.
Once we stopped using credit and making our way toward being able to enjoy the hear and now, we were able to start enjoying windfalls. Small unexpected windfalls mainly. Someone would bring us a meal or a check would show up before going on a trip. Angel Food Ministries coming to our town, smiles, letters from friends.
But there was still a nagging feeling on my part that more money would mean more freedom. Freedom to do what we wanted to with the money, even if it meant that we wouldn't have time to do what we wanted. In the end we have taken the time freedom instead of the financial. Truth is that the money may never have given us what we truly desired, which is a close relationship with God. It has been a lack if money and an abundance of time that has left me with nothing else to do but to get to know my God and my family.
The windfalls reminded me of God's provision through all if our middle class poverty. They were probably always upon us, but I didn't really start appreciating them until we stopped making windfalls for ourself with credit. Because I still see them now, as we move out of credit and into something new. We had many of them this week alone including a financial gift that helped cancel some personal debt as well as some time away for me.
Windfalls are occurring for all of us. We have to be in the moment though to notice and appreciate them. They happen mist often when we give up that worry and decide to let God handle it, only to discover his plan for our provision has been in place since well before our need.
Our material life has been built upon the hope that one day we could afford the basics. The problem with that kind of thinking is that once you start making a decent salary, you have this burden of all the things you've acquired on the way there, so you don't actually get to enjoy it at all.
Once we stopped using credit and making our way toward being able to enjoy the hear and now, we were able to start enjoying windfalls. Small unexpected windfalls mainly. Someone would bring us a meal or a check would show up before going on a trip. Angel Food Ministries coming to our town, smiles, letters from friends.
But there was still a nagging feeling on my part that more money would mean more freedom. Freedom to do what we wanted to with the money, even if it meant that we wouldn't have time to do what we wanted. In the end we have taken the time freedom instead of the financial. Truth is that the money may never have given us what we truly desired, which is a close relationship with God. It has been a lack if money and an abundance of time that has left me with nothing else to do but to get to know my God and my family.
The windfalls reminded me of God's provision through all if our middle class poverty. They were probably always upon us, but I didn't really start appreciating them until we stopped making windfalls for ourself with credit. Because I still see them now, as we move out of credit and into something new. We had many of them this week alone including a financial gift that helped cancel some personal debt as well as some time away for me.
Windfalls are occurring for all of us. We have to be in the moment though to notice and appreciate them. They happen mist often when we give up that worry and decide to let God handle it, only to discover his plan for our provision has been in place since well before our need.
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