Of Bills and Babies: Hope for Parents Concerned about Money

Good news: Olivia is pregnant with our second child, due in November!

Of course, this leads me to always wonder how on earth we're going to support a second (or someday third, fourth, ... ) child.  This would require some major restructuring of our work situations, child care, etc.  God clearly has something up his sleeve for us in the future.  (Frankly, I hope it's money for a heat pump.  Two hundred dollars per month for heating oil is killer.)

But to still my anxious heart, God has lovingly been reminding me of Psalm 37:25-26 again and again.  Not that I ever intentionally memorized it, but it has somehow come to my memory almost every day for the past few weeks:

I have been young, and now am old,
     yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
     or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
     and his children become a blessing.

What a blessing!  To know that somehow, some way, God will always provide for us what we need.  I mean, how many families do you see at Walmart where a single, working mom is towing a whole flock of youngsters?  Sure, God's idea of "what we need" might not intersect with our ideas of comfort or convenience.  But when the goal of our life is the enjoy and glorify our Maker and Sustainer, those "c-words" are only added graces.  So I might not have any clue what our life will someday look like, or how he will provide, but I need to choose to trust that God will be faithful to us and look after our family--better and more lavishly than we could imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).

You may ask, "Andrew, how do you know you're one of 'the righteous'?"  Fair enough--a good look at my life might reveal a whole lot that isn't close to righteous.  But in the Bible, the "righteous" aren't the perfect people, but those who recognize their sinful brokenness and humbly cling to God and follow his ways the best that they can.  And today that means trusting in Jesus, whose perfect sonship and obedience is credited to everyone who hopes in and follows after him.

For additional thought: 2 Corinthians 9:6-11; Philippians 4:10-20.

Mammon Cannot Serve You

On Saturday morning I was praying through Psalm 27, asking God to give me confidence in him so that I'd trust him alone when fears and worries arise. What I didn't expect was that God would, during that time, bring me face to face with one of those worries! Someday if/when Olivia and I have children, we'd ideally like to have her stay home to raise the kids. But whenever I think about the extra cost of children on half the income, all I think about is how this is impossible. How difficult it would be to afford appropriate housing, medical care, food, education, and the like! (And I can kiss graduate school goodbye, too, or so my mental logic tells me.)

But as I prayed, it dawned upon me (through the Spirit of God, no doubt) that if I fretted over how difficult it would be to have such provisions due to a lack of money, I wasn't trusting or looking to God to be our provider. I was hoping in Money itself to provide all these things. And money isn't the living God. It's simply a piece of woven fabric and paper, or a nugget of metal, or a series of binary ones and zeroes in an electronic file in cyberspace. Of course I had reason to worry! Since when could a hundred-dollar bill ever hear my prayers or make dinner or otherwise act on my behalf?


Jesus says, "You cannot serve both God and Money [Greek Mammon, a personification of wealth as a deity]" (Matt. 6:24). But it's also true that Mammon cannot serve you, either. It is a worthless, lifeless, vain thing--made by human hands and obtained only through hours of hard labor! "You will always be running scared," warns Ed Welch, "if you worship other gods, because idols can't deliver on their promises" (Running Scared, p. 176).


Even long before this, the prophet Jeremiah explained to the people of Judah the errors of trusting in anything other than God for their provision (Jer. 9:23-10:16).

Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."

Riches or wisdom or power aren't living, active things to trust in for blessing and security. Only knowing the living, almighty God as Father, Shepherd, King, who relates to you in his constant "steadfast love, justice, and righteousness" is a source of rest and boasting. Trusting in anything else is a foolish form of idolatry. Idols (such as money) are simply products of human craft , and as such, they are impotent (Jer. 10:1-5, 8-9, 15). "Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good" (v. 5). Despite what our everyday experiences tell us, money is absolutely powerless on its own to bring us any good. So why worry about how much of it you have?

What matters is whether or not, through faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have God on our side.

But the LORD is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. (Jeremiah 10:10, 12)

It is not an inanimate object, but a Person, who secures your future, someone you can know and who relates to you in love and concern. If such a God is your God through faith in Jesus, you have a God who hears your prayers and knows your every need. You have a God who speaks to you (Jer. 10:1). You have a God who is wise enough to order and direct the entire cosmos, your life included. You have a God who can count every star in the sky and every hair on your head. You have a God mighty enough to stretch out the heavens and to also carry your burdens (Isaiah 46:3-4). And you have a God who "practices steadfast love" (Jer. 9:24) on your behalf. This is the great hope of those in Christ.

Seek First His Kingdom

Over the past few years, the Holy Spirit has shown me I'm a fearful person--and that means an idolatrous person too. First it was the fear of moving to Chicago. Then once I got there, I feared that if Olivia and I broke up, I'd be stuck alone in some new place where I didn't know anyone. This year I went through all kinds of unrest over my supervisor's disapproval of me and whether or not I'd have a job next year. So why is that idolatry? Because it means I'm ascribing to something or someone else the power and value in my life that only God Most High deserves.

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. . . . But seek first [your heavenly Father's] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:24-25, 33)

It wasn't until reading Running Scared by Ed Welch that I realized how verses 24 and 33, which frame Jesus' teaching about God's daily provision meeting our worries and anxieties, really fit the whole teaching. Jesus says that the solution to worry is to seek God's kingdom and his righteousness. But what exactly does this mean?

Like the father of the ancient Near East, the king's task was to love, protect, and bless his subjects so that the kingdom--his kingdom--prospered. Subjects of the realm, for their part, acknowledged their allegiance to the king and demonstrated that allegiance by living according to his laws.

In the kingdom of God, the King has made extravagant promises to us--promises of protection, liberation, and peace. We respond with our allegiance, which we typically call faith or trust. The essence of faith is not that we trust without evidence but that we choose sides: In whom do we trust? (p. 120)

This was mind-blowing to me. In essence, if we have fears about financial loss, it's not because our bank account is too small or our employment is unstable. We have anxieties because we've set up Money as a god who can provide peace, security, food, shelter, comfort, health, and the like. Hence Jesus says that Money (Greek Mammon) is a master we often choose to serve opposed to God (v. 24). Because we cannot serve two masters, and should serve God alone, "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry . . . ."

Or perhaps it's not money itself we hope in, but rather it might be the very comfort, peace, friends, or self-image that money can provide for us that have become our gods, the things we value more than God himself. When potential for their loss looms and we grow anxious, that shows we're valuing and hoping for something else more than God. "Worry, therefore, is not simply an emotion that erodes our quality of life or a pain to be alleviated. It is a misdirected love that should be confessed. It is trying to manage our world apart from God. It is making life about our needs, desires, and wants" (p. 163).

Seeking God's kingdom, then, is about acknowledging his reign over your life. It's his purposes and plans that must prevail, not your own. But while this might sound like cringing before some Machiavellian overlord, we need to remember that it is our heavenly Father whom we are serving as King (v. 32). If we doubt God's goodness, Jesus comforts us with this corrective: "If you, then, though you are evil [in comparison to God's pure and generous love], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matt. 7:11). "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

God-the-King's faithful, generous, gracious provision and protection is what the Old Testament often means by describing his righteousness. It's his just and good reign over his people, exercising his delivering power in loyal love toward those who've entrusted their welfare to him (see Psalms 4, 5, 96-98). When Jesus encourages us to seek God's kingdom and righteousness above all else, he calls us to acknowledge first God's glad benevolence toward his people and his power to carry out his good intentions for them.

O King, you are mighty to save! Forgive us all the times we've exalted good gifts from you to a place of desire and status above you, the Giver. And forgive us the ways we trust in bosses, paychecks, and the economy for our future, rather than praying for eyes to see your open hands. Help us in our unbelief to know that you have not withheld your only Son, but delivered him up to death for our sake; how will you then withhold any lesser thing that is for our good (Romans 8:32)? In Jesus' name, Amen.