God and Finances - A Painful Truth

I've lived a long life of stress when thinking about the relationship between God and finances. But I do believe those stressful days may be coming to a close...

Ohio Tours and God and Finances

The other day, the Lord posed to me a pretty heavy question. In fact, it hit so hard that I almost felt the brush of a hand slapping me upside the head.

During a recent tour in Ohio, my friend drove as I sat and watched the trees go by. We had some conversations revolving around God and living for Him, but the discussion lightly danced around various topics.

It didn't last long.

At that moment, as we barreled down the highway, something clicked in me and I wasn't sure how to grasp it.

It hit like a freight train. God and finances suddenly made more sense.

My thoughts had wandered backward across my adult life and mulled over my relationship with both God and finances. However, I'd never seen it in the proper context until that moment. When the truth became clear, I realized I had approached my relationship with God in a completely wrong way.

The fact was, I had tried to marry God and finances. Mind you, in a slightly wise moment, Scripture tells us we cannot serve both God and money.

In that car, in the middle of Ohio, I finally realized I was trying to do just that. I mistakenly believed I could marry God and finances together, and He wouldn't notice.

He posed me a simple question. Which do I pray about more – finances or ministry?

In that instant, I knew I'd been had. That lethal mix of God and finances had been laid bare to me, and I understood how lacking my spiritual walk was.

Prayer, God and Finances

I've had plenty of years of solid, deep prayer. I've sought the Lord's face, fasted, wrestled, and received massive revelation. But one topic has always come back again and again. It's always danced around my heart, mocking me because I couldn't quite find the right solution or heart position.

My finances.

For years, I've never truly understood how God and finances relate. I would pray for my struggling finances and seek His face for the provision. Then, as though I had forgotten my face, I would turn back to scheming on how to make more money to put my family in a more stable financial position.

This battle has raged for a long time and over the past decade, it's felt as though I've never been able to get the car out of 2nd gear financially.

So what's my recourse? Prayer. Lots and lots of prayer.

Even during the beginning of the tour in Ohio, I struggled with how to handle this combination of God and finances without seeing myself as being led away by the concern for wealth.

I was already led far down that pathway without realizing it.

He Hit Me With the Truth

When God hit me with the question of which took up more of my prayer time, I understood that it had been a competition between God and finances. Unfortunately, finances were winning. My idol had become finances over His will, His Kingdom, and His purpose.

How did I know that?

My own prayers had convicted me. I had spent countless mornings and nights asking, requesting, petitioning, and crying out for the finances that I thought would solve my problems. I asked the Lord in every different method I could think of for stable and abundant finances, yet I never seemed to crack the code.

Mind you, I wasn't seeking massive wealth. I just wanted to know that my bills would be paid, my family would be fed, and I'd have a little extra to take care of things we wanted and needed.

Seems harmless, right?

The Construction of an Idol

But that's how an idol begins to be built. It seems harmless at the beginning and pretends to pose no threat. Sadly, we put more and more weight into its necessity, hoping that once the idol handles our issue, we can go back to being devoted to God wholeheartedly.

We put more and more faith and reliance on the idol, telling ourselves that the idol can solve our problems.

My devotion had subtly slipped into desiring the problem-solving potential of finances, and I looked to God to be the vessel for my solution. If He could give me the finances, then those issues would go away.

How easily we're deceived.

The truth is, I replaced the greater with the lesser. Just as Christ warns the Pharisees, we must be careful not to replace the greater with the lesser.

Christ calls out the Pharisees by asking them whether the gold they swear by is greater than the temple the gold sits in. After all, it's the temple that makes it great.

In the same fashion, when I was weighing out my relationship with God and finances, He showed me that I was putting my faith in the blessing, not the one who gives the blessing.

This is a dangerous replacement we make when dealing with God and finances. We imagine that we're being faithful to Him while we put our focus on the finances and resources. Instead of trusting in Him and seeking first the Kingdom of God, we're weighing out what we need from Him and expecting Him to give it.

We put our faith and reliance on the finances and relegate God to the provider role. In other words, in the battle of God and finances: we worship the finances and diminish our God's hand.

What hit me about this moment was the realization that I had been devoting so much prayer time to my personal finances and "needs" that I had forsaken praying into His will and purpose. I'd diminished time spent praying for others, praying for open doors, seeking spiritual territory, and doing spiritual warfare.

Instead of trusting Him with my needs as I die to myself, I tried to keep myself alive on spiritual life support.

I'm Not My Own

It makes sense now. My life is not my own. My old self is dead. My God is now my Lord. Which, comes with the provision He deems necessary.

This means I'm free to focus all of my energies on His will, and in turn, He will ensure I have the energy to keep going. The scales of my prayers should be laid heavy with a heart for ministry and His will...not the physical desires of my flesh.

The best part? I can be content in all things just as Paul claimed to be. Whether rich or poor, starving or full, naked or clothed, rested or exhausted, I can be content in the ministry and mission God has placed on me. Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God can sustain me as I carry out this mission He has given me.

The power of ending the competition between God and finances is recognized in the peace and relief I feel. The oppressive nature of money still taps me on the shoulder, threatening to weigh me down, so I must continuously put it back in God's hands and die to myself.

After all, if I'm dead to myself, then I don't need to do a whole lot of providing for myself, do I?

I haven't completed the process of purging the idol of finances from my life, but this is a great start.

The Deception of Loving God and Finances

As I sit and meditate over what it means to no longer seek both God and finances, I more thoroughly understand how deceptive the love of money can be. It draws us in while we exclaim to ourselves that we're seeking a bit more for the furtherance of the kingdom.

"If I just had a little more, I could really do some cool things for you God!"

Or, the popular, "If I had enough money, I'd give so much away to people!"

Yet, we don't. In the end, we tell ourselves that the money has to come before we can serve Him. We pretend that our hearts are open and generous because we imagine how fun it would be to give away a bunch of money. But in reality, our hearts are greedy and closefisted. We decide that we have to have enough before we can be generous.

That's being generous out of abundance...not sacrifice.

At one point in Scripture, Christ points out a rich man bringing his sack of money to the temple as an offering. People cheered, men blew trumpets, and heralds called the way.

Meanwhile, a meek woman quietly put in the last two coins that she owned.

Christ definitively proclaims that the woman went away justified. Why? Because she gave out of sacrifice and out of love for the Lord. Not only that, but she gave, knowing that God would provide for her.

If only I could release myself from the weight of finances like she did. Instead, it seems to gnaw at my identity and my self-esteem.

It Was Really About My Pride

For the longest time, I wanted to prove myself in various areas. Sadly, I've always seen finances and business as major areas with which to show my abilities and build achievements. And try as I might, I never seemed to grasp the gold ring I thought I needed.

Too many prayers were spent trying to achieve such a fleshly dream. I struggled to let it die, wondering what it would be like to live an entire life this way. I couldn't imagine getting to my old age and never having conquered the mountain of finances.

I was trying to hold onto both God and finances and it was dragging me down the mountain.

So I've let the dream die. I've resolved in my heart to seek the kingdom first and let the status of finances rest completely in the hands of God. If He chooses to bless me with abundance, then I pray I use it responsibly. If He chooses not to? Then I pray he uses what I do have in a miracle akin to the loaves and fishes.

Either way, I can't take any of it with me. So I might as well store up treasures in heaven with God and leave the rest to Him.

And don't forget: if He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field, how much more will He do so for us?