Break the Cycle

Today I was honored to be asked to participate in Connecting Henry's "Break the Cycle" program and was privileged to meet some ladies who are taking the FIRST baby step into breaking the cycle in their lives and in their children's lives. It was a very humbling experience to be talking to people I did not know who, for most part, all had the same desire. They all had a desire to find financial peace in their lives. Many times during the day I had to hold back the tears because so many of these ladies felt that they had done something wrong and were feeling hopeless of how to get out of the mess that they had created for themselves. I just sat and watched as one young lady herself was holding back the tears all day. I could see clearly these were not tears of poverty, physical abuse, loneliness or even drug abuse. They were tears because she was in financial bondage and felt that there was no way out and she had no one to turn to.

One of the speakers at the event said two things that were very profound to me and I had to write them down to share them with all of you. She reminded these ladies that we must use our "mess" to be our "message" and we must use our "test" to be our "testimony". She also stated that we must train our thoughts to become our speech and train our speech to become our actions. Such true statements. Dave calls our mess, "stupid tax" and boy have I done my fair share of that. However, now, I am trying to take the "stupid tax or mess" of my life and turn it into a message of hope for these people and many more who will come through the Break the Cycle program and that I am able to reach in a Financial Peace class session. God certainly has tested me and my family this past year and now I have such a powerful testimony to share with others and a platform in which to share it. I try and speak financial peace into everyone I see, as much to help them, but to continue to help myself as well. It is when I am helping others where God makes me realize even more how we must break the cycle of generational poverty in our county, even if it is one person at a time.

One of the other speakers at the event said you must have "GOD" everyday in your life. Even though this man was a Godly man, this word was meant as an acronym to mean "Good Orderly Direction". Isn't that what God and the Bible are? Isn't that really what Dave is trying to teach us in the Financial Peace Program? The Bible is very practical good orderly direction. God talks about money over 800 times in the scripture, more than He does about love. The question I was left with as the session ended today, was, are these people going to take all of the good orderly direction that they had received today and use it to turn their thoughts into their speech and their speech into their actions and create their life message and testimony? That is my prayer...

Surrender

Today's blog is taken from the words of Rick Warren's Purpose Drive Life Daily Devotion.

The most difficult thing for many people to surrender is their money. Many have thought, I want to live for God but I also want to earn enough money to live comfortably and retire someday. Retirement is not the goal of a surrendered life, because it competes with God for the primary attention of our lives. Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and money,”

(Matthew 6:24 NIV)and “Wherever your treasure is, your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21 NIV). The supreme example of self-surrender is Jesus. The night before his crucifixion Jesus surrendered himself to God’s plan. He prayed, “Father, everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine” (Mark 14:36 NLT). Jesus didn’t pray, “God, if you’re able to take away this pain, please do so.” He began by affirming that God can do anything! He prayed, “God, if it is in your best interest to remove this suffering, please do so. But if it fulfills your purpose, that’s what I want, too.” Genuine surrender says, “Father, if this problem, pain, sickness, or circumstance is needed to fulfill your purpose and glory in my life or in another’s life, please don’t take it away!”. This level of maturity doesn’t come easy.In Jesus’ case, he agonized so much over God’s plan that he sweat drops of blood. Surrender is hard work. In our case, it requires intense warfare against our self-centered nature.

I truly feel that society is suffering today financially, because God is wanting to get our attention and that many of us are in these financial problems and circumstances because God wants to change us, so that he can fulfill His purpose in our lives. The only way He can do this is for us to surrender in this area.

Surrendering your control over your money means:

· Following God’s lead without knowing where he’s sending you;
· Waiting for God’s timing without knowing when it will come;
· Expecting a miracle without knowing how God will provide;
· Trusting God’s purpose without understanding the circumstances.

We must remember one thing. When we approach money with a clinched fist, no more money can get in. It is only when we release the strong hold or open our fist and surrender it back to God, is when God can truly bless us and perform a miracle in our lives with our finances.

Is your fist or your heart open or closed to God when it

comes to your finances?

"Help us through our cash crisis"

Today, I was sitting in a waiting room while Makalee was taking a dance class and picked up Red Book magazine, August 2008. I was just thumbing through it and came across an article titled "Help us through our cash crisis". I started reading it and it really got my attention as it was talking about how you should track your spending and start a budget. Well, you know with me being the nerd of the household and being a total geek about FPU, that was all I needed to read to keep me focused on what they would recommend next. The writer stated that the couple that the story featured "are like lots of Americans - good people, who got in over their heads". Then, in steps a financial advisor who was there to give them a money makeover and was offering her expensive wisdom. She states that this couple "feared money management and that this fear has led to poor decisions and has kept the couple from tackling their fear and their debt in order to get back on track." OK, so I agreed with these comments and read on, right up until I get to the point where the financial advisor actually says "if you tithe less for just a few months, you can pay off one of your credit cards." If any of you know me, from then on out, I could not read any more as my mind was going off and asking how could a financial advisor really say that. Then I realized well one who was not a Christian could say it easily.

Stockbridge Community Church just started our 5th Financial Peace class this past Sunday and we had 50 individuals there. Their first homework assignment is to actually put down their expenditures on paper in a budget. I am certain that some of these families once they actually write it down will realize that there is not enough money at the end of the month, just like this couple did and they will begin to panic and try to determine how to make the number balance out with nothing in the red and where they needed to cut back. I would just like to strongly caution all of you class members to stop and think about what expenses you will cut out and how they will really affect your life. Let's start with a simple list of extra items in the budget for this couple:

• Cable $150.00 (wow, you have all the channels)


• Dining Out $300.00 (loving those Friday night steak dinners aren't we)


• Gym $80.00 (that you never attend)


• Tithes $400.00 (not even a real tithe and 10% of their income)


• Starbucks $ 50.00 (or should we call it $5Bucks)


• Groceries $800.00 (holy cow, I guess they eat at home well also)


• 2nd mortgage $92.00 (that was used to pay off credit card debt that that recharged)

I know this sounds harsh and I really do not need mean to beat anyone up, but I know that at one point in my own life I could raise my hand and say hey that looks like my own budget.

So now is the time when you have your budget committee meeting with your spouse or accountability partner and you must then decide what you must cut out of our expenses to have a zero balanced budget. I will admit that I have recently actually had someone come to me and ask me the question "if I could not tithe for a while, we could make it, what do you suggest?"

I responded like this. This is really a decision between you and God and that Dave says that if he can just get people to give something it is better than most. I can tell you that statistically only 5% of Americans give a true tithe, a tenth of their income. Of the others that give an "offering", on average these evangelical Christians give less than 3% of their income. So Dave says if you give anything at all when you start this program, it is better than most give.

This is what I can tell you from a true experience in my own life. I have found that when I give back what does not belong to me anyway, I ALWAYS seem to be able to make ends meet at the end of the month. Sure, I have to cut out drinking tea when I eat out. For my family that is $20.00 a pop, because we have 6 children. I also had to cut my cable bill down to nothing, but hey, I have now have time to read and write this blog. I have read more books the last several months than I have my entire life. I have to use the cash envelopes to track my grocery spending and it is not always easy, but otherwise, I too, would spend $800.00 per month. I love a good Starbucks coffee and I will admit that I struggle with that one, so I made sure that my blow money is used up every week in that area.

The point I am trying to make here is that when you start managing your money the way God intended it to be managed, you will not have to cut out or back your "tithe" to God. God will always provide for you what you need. I will leave you with a few Bible verses and let you make your own decision about what you will cut back in order to have a balanced budget when you are ready to do your budget.

Psalms 24:1 "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" - how can we even think that it is ours to decide how much we will give back to God anyway?

Malachi 3:10 "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it" - what HUGE blessings are you willing to give up in order to get a balanced budget? I bet this is not a guarantee the credit card companies can make when you pay them their full amount due each month?

Stuff by George Carlin

Last night Jamie and I were watching TV and on GBP they were doing a dedication to George Carlin. Now, I am not at all a George Carlin fan, but Jamie made me sit there and endure the TV show. He started doing his comedy act about "stuff" and it reminded me of what we learned in FPU about having "stuffitus". George looks at it like this:

• The whole meaning of life is trying to find a place to put your stuff. Really? at least that is what society wants you to think, isn't it?


• If we didn't have so much stuff we wouldn't need a house. That is a good point. We could become a missionary and not worry about leaving our stuff behind...hmmm.


• Your house is a place to keep your stuff, so you can go out and get more stuff. How many times have you just gone shopping just to get more stuff you did not need, to impress people you did not like, with money you did not have?


• Sometimes you got to get a bigger house to hold all of your stuff. Why, because you have TOO MUCH stuff. I wonder statistically how many people in America have more house than they can afford, just to store all of their stuff?


• Sometimes you even have to store your stuff. There is a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff. Now that is where it gets to be a really big addiction and why Dave calls it "stuffitus".


• We think to ourselves when we go to other people's house and see their stuff "what an awful stuff it is". And, this is when greed steps in and we start coveting our neighbor with what stuff they have. Did you even stop to realize that this is one of the ten commandments, thou shalt not covet their neighbor?"


• Sometimes we've got more places than we've got stuff, so we have to go out and buy more stuff. And this causes debt up to our eyes balls my friends.

Amen to most of this right? At least until you have had a change about the way you think about money. If you truly hear what Dave tries to say in the weekly sessions of Financial Peace, you will understand that society has sold us such a pack of lies about how having stuff gives us power, control, prestige and fame. Then add having to pay someone for that stuff which we must have right now, just makes us "normal". Well, most people do think that, but once you really start to understand that God is very clear when he says that you will either love God or money and you can not love both, is when you really start to understand that "stuff" is not all that important any more. I want to be "weird" and try and change the way our community thinks about stuff. Stuff is OK, as long as stuff does not consume your life to the point where a comedian such as George Carlin has to write a script about it and sells millions, because it is true.