Its not all about the Money, is it?

She challenged me, that for the couple who are both unemployed and the bills just keep on coming – it IS all about the money.  For the family that is drowning in medical bills and going under…it IS all about the money. When the bank is threatening to foreclose on your house and repossess your only vehicle – it IS all about the money.  When you are trying to get cozy and warm under a layer of brown paper in a cardboard box on a cold winter night – it IS all about the money.   Not having to worry about where our next meal is coming from or where we are going to sleep tonite or how we will keep our children alive and healthy.  I DO get that.  We need money to live in this world.  Fact of life.  Truer than true.

The marketers of this world want us to believe it is all about the money.  And so much of what is going on in this world and life is all about money.  Looking out for number one.  Making a buck.  Living in comfort.  Feeling financially secure. Having status and power.

But for me… I started to realize that I have sold my creative soul to practicality.  To fear.  To squelching my dreams and goals.  To living up to other people expectations. To falling for the manipulation of the marketers.   All for the almighty dollar.  I found my security in a job and in a paycheque and in my spending power. And no….we can’t all afford to follow our bliss.  If we could, everyone would be doing it. But as long as I had the ability to produce wealth – I lived with a sense of security, albeit false.  Being able to spend money and what I could get with it was my security.    It was my image and my status. It was my comfort and my bubble.   Inspite of being a believer in a Creator that owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  Inspite of knowing that I was a daughter and an heir to everything that was HIS, I chose to believe that I had to make it all happen.  I had to do it all. I had to grasp for whatever I could get my grubby little hands on and then hang on to it for dear life (AKA hoarding).  What if HE didn’t bless me with enough? or the with the right stuff?  What if I didn’t like what HE would provide?  What then?  What if I didn’t want to wait?  I’m not getting any younger you know.  I am of the instant gratification generation.  I’m not particularly fond of His timing at times.

Each time I have had a job taken from me (several times in this life) I have felt the rug pulled out from underneath and panic and sheer terror has set in.  This last time finally did me in.  What was to become of me?  Of us?  Why did my heavenly Father keep blessing me with amazing opportunities and then allow them to be taken from me?  Was He mad at me?  Did He want to teach me a lesson?  Did he want me to suffer?

I have to admit, I am as stupid as those Israelites that wandered the desert for 40 years looking for the promised land when it should have taken 11 days.  I read something in a book recently that stated… Life is not supposed to be like a merry-go-round where we keep going around in circles always ending up back in the same place.  This was my life and to be honest, I was getting very dizzy of it. I keep purging my home every 6 months or so and am in the process of doing so once again and I usually have heeps of boxes of things to donate.  Why is this?  Why is my home bulging at the seams?  Because I keep making bad choices, that’s why.

Here’s the thing.  I have made bad spending choices. Disobedient spending choices, if I am going to share my shame story with you and it appears that I am.  I have found my security in things.  I have found my security in comfort.  I have found my security in image.  And yet….turns out it wasn’t secure at all.  And I am not secure.  Its my insecurities that have caused me to make these bad choices.  Over the last year and a half as I have finally had to realize that I need to adopt a different lifestyle.  I need to tone it way down. I am now reaping what I have sown.  And this financial irresponsibility is what has kept me up at night.  I need to simplify and live with less.  I need to stop worrying and panicking and fearing.  I need to trust the one I believe in.

And I am finally realizing that I do not need everything I once thought I did.  Having a beautiful home and a nice car to drive, a trendy and extensive wardrobe, opportunities to travel and buying whatever my little hearts desires were once heady experiences.  Don’t get me wrong…I DO still love all of those things and I do still succumb to old ways  now and again but I am making progress.  I’ve come to  realize that I don’t need all of this to have a rich, fulfilling, purposeful life. Those things turned out to be a noose around my neck and very often have made me a slave.  And I’m not too fond of slavery.  Who is? I believe, in the slavery, I have lost my sense of purpose, my calling, some might say.  And I need to find it again or finally. But first I need to strip away the clutter in my soul and in my life.

And then I reflect on how faithful HE has been even when I have been unfaithful.  When I revisit my personal journey, I can see how HE has come through for me time and time again.  HE will never leave or forsake me…or you for that matter.  Most of my greatest fears have never come to pass.   No, I have not always embraced His methods but in the end, He’s always been there.  And I realize that my pursuit should not be material gain but rather abiding in Him and clinging to the vine and learning to trust Him because I have found Him faithful.

And no, HE has not always been pleased with the way I have stewarded his blessings (or not) but He is not trying to make me suffer. I am doing that to myself.  He is for me. He KNOWS the plans he has for me, even if I do not and those plans are not to harm me (in any way), they are to prosper me (in every way) and to give me a future and a hope.  And as long as my hope is in Him…then it is not all about the money.