Benjamins & .5

Good comments…good thoughts. The age old question: what to do with our money.

I’ve talked with several people yesterday since my last post, and Taylor and I talked about it all the way from Fort Worth to Abilene. We debated everything from whether Bill Gates was being excessive with his heated sidewalks to whether or not living in a tent hunting for our own food was too drastic. Taylor and Jacquie both bring up a good point – no matter what, we can’t judge others based on material things. I did however debate with Taylor about an absolute truth – is it fair to say that heated sidewalks are absolutely never a necessity or is that on the verge of judgment? Can you judge actions but not a heart? There’s no cap on how much money a person can make in order to still be a Christian. The amount of money isn’t the issue – it’s what you do with it.

God says give at least 10% of your money and save, but not enough so that your barns are overflowing. I looked in the back of the Bible and there is no modern-day equivalent to tell me how much it takes to overflow a barn. They tell you how much a shekel is yet don’t tell you the dimensions of a barn and how much can fit. God also says sell everything and give to the poor (good reference, DM). Are we called to give more because the rest of the world isn’t? Does selling everything literally mean have a giant garage sale to get rid of all of your stuff or is it more “don’t be stupid and materialistic”?

I think what bothers me is how we somehow upgrade when our paycheck upgrades. I never want to be the person driving the sweet car where people say “I bet she’s rich”. No matter how much I give to the poor (time or money) I don’t want to use that as an excuse to be pretentious. Even if God blesses me with the ability to make money and have my salary grow every year, I don’t want to spend more in direct response to my pay increase. My brain and heart are tired. I sure love deep-thinking but it hurts my head.

Taylor and I hit the big 6 months. We are big time – 1/2 a year and still going strong. Sadly enough, I know people my age who didn’t even last that long. How does that happen?! He is currently in the kitchen making dinner for me from a website he found that gives daily recipes for the week. The part that intrigued him was how cheap the meals were if you just bought the exact ingredients and didn’t go crazy like we always do. Taylor always takes the conservative route. I can’t be trusted otherwise I end up with an eggplant and rosemary in my cart saying, “I’m sure we could do something with this!”

I will be officially done working in campus visits next Wednesday. If I weren’t really excited about Ft. Worth, I would be more sad. The thing about goodbyes is that people move on. I’d like to think that people will tear their clothes and cover their bodies in ashes but in reality they will be fine starting Thursday. I just invested a lot of myself into the kids that came through and I’m sad I won’t get to enjoy ACU with them. Oh well…maybe I’ll give tours of Ft. Worth to compensate.