March 24, 2013 – Proverbs 11

This chapter begins and ends with two similar proverbs regarding wealth.  “Wealth is useless on a day of wrath” and “Those who trust in their riches will fall”.  Money is such a big issue in everyone’s life, including our family.  It brings so much worry and stress.  Yet here it is, that it will not help us when it really matters and relying on it will only lead us to fall.  So, how do you balance a life where money isn’t an issue and enough concern for money and budgets so that your family is provided for?  The question is really to myself.  I struggle with this.  Recently just found out that we will not be getting raises again this year and I just don’t know where money is going to come from to make ends meet.  A growing family is an expensive thing and growing more and more expensive.  Governments and trying to pay for more, bringing in less, so employees of government are receiving less (unless you are one of the very high ups like a city manager and get a 14% raise).

But then I read this and try to step back and see how much am I trusting in money and why when I know that I am not supposed to.  How much is money dictating my thoughts and worry that I have.  I know I have lost sleep thinking about the money we thought was going to be there and is not, I know it has caused stress in our home, I know that it is distracting from what is really important.  But it also cannot be ignored.  It is a struggle I feel I lose more than win.

This also makes me think of the money we are supposed to give to the Church and others.  As bad as I may complain, we are not in some dire straits, we are just not as well off as many of those around us, which is a very relative and wrong way of looking at things.  But how do you measure those priorities.  We still give the same amount to the Church that we always have, even though I bring home less and the family is bigger, so that feels like we are still striving to fulfill that obligation, but there is not a lot a giving after that.  I used to excuse that in that we would volunteer a lot and that compensated for not giving monetary funds, but the volunteering has dried up a bit since the kids have come.  Like I said, it is a struggle finding that balance with money and God and meeting the needs of the family.