I Cannot Love God and Money

Oh how my heart gets in a wad about our finances! I am a saver, frugal and delighted to go without...except when I want something "good" or don't want to be so uptight or think its a "must have". My self-righteousness and hypocrisy are both loud and clear in the area of our family's finances.

How do my questions and anxieties about money direct my heart to the Gospel, the living and active person and work of Jesus on my behalf? It is certainly an area where my native tongue of legalism and self-reliance still dominate my thinking. It shows where I am not yet fluent or "dreaming" in my new Gospel language. What does it reveal about my heart? For one, that I assume He has left me "to figure it out" on my own. That the health of our finances rests on our budgeting righteousness and perfections and not upon His provision alone.

But you must be a good steward! says my native tongue. You must make good choices! threatens my inner Pharisee. Of course I must be a good steward and make good choices, but I can't always know what the very best choice is and I won't always make it even when crystal clear because of that darn thing called sin. So has God left me alone in this area while being sovereign over the rest? Is the area of finances one where the Gospel does not apply? Does God think that what the Law is powerless to do in other respects it can do in this one? Am I to perfect my sinful inclinations in the area of money or trust Him to work in me to will and act according to His good pleasure?

In what do I place my trust? Do I trust that His will be done in the matter of my children's schooling and the accompanying costs? Do I trust that His will is to be done in the matter of adopting another child? Do I trust His will to be done in the matter of selling our current home at just the time He desires? Does He withhold any good thing from His children? And do our personal desires always define what "good" things are? Is the goal of faith "health and prosperity" or union with Christ? What better way to draw me closer into Himself that to strike at the heart of the lesser god I'd rather trust - me and my money management.

Does He merely give us His Law and ask us to go make ourselves financially righteous? Is He standing, watching, arms crossed, here the hint of a smile and there a bit of a scowl? Or does the Gospel also inform how I am to think about money? Has He left me alone to handle this area of my life "wisely" or in this too am I asked to be utterly dependent upon Him? Am I desperately in need of His grace with my money, knowing that I will not always choose to spend on the noble things and frequently neglect giving where I should? Or, is this is a category of life where, armed with just the right financial planning, I can be independent of God and self-sustaining?

Does utter dependence encourage irresponsibility? Possibly. Does grace encourage sin? Sometimes initially, sure, but it is also the only lense possible to see my need for God and His provision of that need. Is it an overnight transformation? Not usually. Sanctification is a process, its the rough draft state we're in until the end of days. Will He complete the good work that He has begun in my heart? He says so. Do I trust Him?

I am thankful that He is using my fears surrounding money and budgeting to expose my unbelief and natural inclination to stand with Adam and Eve, wanting to be my own God and do it by myself. Would He take my unbelief and make it a faith that can move mountains!

Adoption

I believe I have been adopted by God into His family, not by genetics nor something particularly winsome about me, but because of His great love. We have been made to image Him, and part of that imaging to the world is the same kind of lavish, unmerited, unreasonable love for others as we have been loved by Him.

This kind of love for others isn't convenient or comfortable. It rarely wins us prizes or earns us more money. Its usually messy and not reciprocated to the degree we feel entitled, but that too is how God loves us. He doesn't need something from us, nor is He loving us for His own validation. He loves because it is who He is. We love, not because it is who we are, because it isn't (yet), but because it is who He is. We love because He first loved us.

It is with this belief that Terrell and I begin the journey of adopting our next family member. We believe the Kingdom of God is made up of every tongue, tribe and nation and we'd like our family to be a little taste of that reality even now. Our family as those adopted through the person and work of Jesus is not based on eye color or common talents and interests. Its made up of many "body parts" working together to image far better than we can do as individuals.

Are we scared? How could we not be? Can I handle this? Of course not. But He can and He will. If its anything like trying to sell our condo in the worst real estate market in ever, this too will probably be a very long process involving a lot of waiting. I hate waiting. From what I've read of the experiences of others, it will be gut wrenching at times, but life-giving nonetheless.

So where is our child now? We don't know yet. In a womb in Uganda or alone in a little crib? How will we pay for it? We have no idea. But God doesn't need for us to figure it out, work it all out, sort it all out. He has done it, He will do it...and all as much for our hearts to genuinely trust Him more than they do right now and to believe that He is God and we are not. Oh how my fears expose that I think myself still an orphan, left to make it on my own. I'm so excited to begin to learn what it means to be deeply secure in His all the time, unconditional, gracious, merciful, loving, good Fatherhood.

How Great is the Love

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1

Lavish love! Whoa! This is a heavily exclamation marked post so far, but so is the truth of that verse. His love for me, for us His children, is so great yet I live like it is conditional or dutiful or "supposed to" love. I assume it is factual love but not delighted love. I assume He stands with arms crossed and a disappointed scowl toward me for my foolishness, ignorance, bad attitudes, cluelessness and so on. But lavish love has no scowl. Lavish love doesn't have arms folded but wide open!

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:16-19

"We know and RELY on the love God has for us." Oh that I could begin to rely on His love rather than doubt it. That I could begin to trust His love, fully earned by the person and work of Jesus and quit trying to earn and maintain it by my own striving. There is no more punishment for me in His love because it has already been applied to Someone else. Why do I keep fearing His displeasure, distrusting His adoration of me as His lavishly loved child?

As Edmund Clowney referenced the Israelites, chosen not choice, could I live out of His lavish love that is based solely on His goodness and not my own? He loves me not by ignoring my irritating habits, overlooking my impure motives and stubborn opinions but with confidence that His love will change these realities of my heart, in His good time, to His glory.

Oh that just this one day I could live with the laughter of one who is lavishly loved, the delight of life free of cynicism and distrust and ultimately better able to love others because I have been so well loved.

Waiting, Dreaming and Trusting

My heart is aching, as it seems to do on a regular basis these days, and its so hard to sort out my sin from the stirrings of God. It is becoming more clear that they are not to be separated...His stirrings are like the tweezers removing a splinter from my foot. It hurts but its also the only way to run freely. The ache shows me what is true about my own heart and what He wants me to believe about His.

I continue to see that I have self glory lust, pining for my own praises and fame. I also see that He is gracious and gentle, not condemning me for what He already suffered on my behalf. Instead, He is persuading me that His glory and praise is so much more satisfying because they are aimed at something that lasts forever and is truer and more beautiful than any other object of praise.

"I'd rather have Jesus" is for now something that I must now grab hold of in moments where I find myself sinking in the mire of my own brokenness. But He is tuning my heart to sing His praise that one day, I can sing the whole thing with integrity on sunny days just as truthfully as rainy ones.

So what am I aching over?

For today is the longing and waiting and dreaming of living in Grove Park with neighbors who have different colored skin than we do and a different cultural history and different stories from which our hearts have so much to learn. I want to grow with them, understanding that the Kingdom of God is made up of every people group, language, nation and even neighborhood.

For today it is the longing and waiting and dreaming of adopting multiple children who are family-less not because I can handle anything more in my daily responsibilities but because God didn't adopt me out of boredom or convenience. I want to provide a mother and father for the motherless and fatherless, a home for a little one who is homeless and taste of His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

For today it is the waiting on publishing my first book about the Gospel that I could begin to share this very good news of the person and work of Jesus as I never knew it and am just barely beginning to understand, even as I lived a Chrsitian life for so many years.

So I ache and long and wait and dream. And I trust and believe and ask God to turn my inwardly bent heart toward its only rightful resting place in Him.

This is the day the Lord has made, just as it is today, just I am today, and I will rejoice and be glad it because I trust that He is good all the time and all of His ways are right and true and more life-giving than my best plans.