Money, Money, Money

The other day, I started watching a show about a successful guy who sits down with people and helps them with their finances. As I watched the first episode, I was struck by how uncomfortable the first two couples he helped were about talking about their finances with each other. They didn’t seem terribly uncomfortable talking to the host of the show, but they seemed pretty uncomfortable talking with each other. These two couples had been married for years. How can that be? Why are people so uncomfortable talking about finances? ​

In Matthew 6:21, Jesus makes the following famous statement, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Perhaps that is why we find it so difficult or uncomfortable to talk about finances; it exposes what is in our hearts. Nothing so clearly or quickly cuts to the chase of where our hearts are than our bank accounts. What could expose our desires more than our credit cards, consumer debt, overdraft fees, or Amazon Prime purchase history?

The purpose of this letter is to remind us to take inventory of our lives. Right before the bit about your treasure and your heart, Jesus says in verse 20, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Sometimes I think about stuff way too much. I have a family after all. I want them to have the best. What father and husband doesn’t? I think that’s OK to want good stuff. But may it never be that I become so focused on treasures in this life that I forget the best investment of all.

May our prayers be like that of the Psalmist:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139:23-24)