Over the last four days I haven't posted anything, which I know is unusual for me, but it was important that I took that break from social media and unplugged for several days with my family. I was starting to feel overwhelmed by all of it and needed uninterrupted time with my family and God to refocus, and reconnect. Now, today I feel recharged and reenergized!
There is something special, something revitalizing in spending time away from social media and spending it with those that are important to you, my husband and I took a camping trip over this extended weekend and I really think it made a huge difference for us. We spent three days in a pretty secluded campground with maybe ten other campers all spread out over the grounds. There was so much peace, quiet, and beauty. All this quiet and the slow pace of our days at the campground provided us with lots of time to talk, reflect, and pray. One of the things I prayed about a lot was learning to let go of my need to control things and giving it up to God, especially where money is concerned.
I love to give, I love helping others, I'm the type of person that keeps a few bucks in my pocket just in case I run into someone who might need it, but I focus a lot on what's in my bank account. I worry a lot about money, spending hours and days focused on my finances, and still rarely ending up a head, causing me to stress, and worry more, and to obsess even more. I realized over my break where I was unplugged from everything, just how much I had been stressing myself out. I realized also, that my spending and giving weren't the problems, it was how I viewed money that was the problem.
I'd look at my bills, and my income every week and say things like, 'Once I pay this off life will be easier, if I can just get this much saved up than I won't worry anymore, just this much more and I'll have enough to do this.' And while to a degree these are good things to be aware of, and you should have financial plans and goals your worries about them shouldn't consume you the way they were me. It wasn't just the day that I balanced and paid everything that I was thinking like this, it was everyday, almost as frequently as I prayed I would think about my finances. This kind of obsessive thought seemed rational to me before the trip, after all, if I'm not careful things could get out of hand.
The truth is though, that even with my best efforts to be careful, and checking things as much as I could and thinking and planning all the time about it, things were getting out of hand anyway. I just couldn't make anything work the way I had planned. I felt like I was treading water and just barely staying afloat. This is when I realized my problem. I was expecting money to provide me with a sense of security, I was giving it a place of power and authority in my life. While we need money to pay bills, and go and do things, money is not the most important thing, God is, and the more I worried about money, the less I trusted Him with my financial provisions and tried to control it myself. This failed.
Before I got my current job I used to write a financial plan each month, and at the top of each plan I would write a prayer giving that months financial blessings or concerns to the Lord. I checked it once a week to make sure I stayed on task, but I didn't worry because I had given it to God already, I just trusted that it would all work out. Then, after I got this job making more I stopped doing it, and for a while didn't worry much at all. Then a banking error occurred and ever since I've gone crazy worrying and obsessing about my finances. Today though, I'm committing it back to God. Giving up my worries, and trusting. I'm going back to my monthly plans, and prayers. I'm not holding anything back anymore because God can handle things so much better than I can!
Psalms 68:19
Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burdens, even the God who is our salvation. Selah.
1 Peter 5:6-7
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; 7 casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you
Deuteronomy 15:10-11
10 "You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings. 11 "For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'
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