And Their Eyes Were Opened
It’s that time of year again! At our parish, we are preparing for our annual Compass workshop (It’s Not About the Money, It’s About the Change) and gearing up for our fall Bible Study (Navigating Your Finances God’s Way), which means we will be revisiting the principles we have been putting into practice for several years now. It is a very exciting time and I would encourage anyone who has not participated in our Navigating Your Finances God’s Way Bible Study and/or workshop to make this the year you do it.
For those who have participated in the workshop or Bible study, we share a common bond. Our stories start out a bit like that of Adam and Eve after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the serpent convinced Adam and Eve that they didn’t need to be fearful of dying if they ate the fruit, they succumbed to his lies and their eyes were opened to truths that had been privy only to God. They fashioned loincloths for themselves because they became aware of their nakedness and hid from God out of shame for what they had done.
Prior to taking the Compass Bible Study or attending the workshop, we might not have been aware of what God has to say about our finances. In fact, many people who attend our seminars are truly floored by how many verses in the Bible speak about finances (over 2,500).
Experiencing the Bible Study or workshop can also be a time of reconciliation for some people who have been so oblivious to God’s economy and so entrenched in a secular mind-set that they are left shaking their heads in disbelief that they, too, had succumbed to the serpent’s lie—believing in the principles held by our world’s secular economy.
When parents don’t teach children about money, and finances are not discussed in the home setting, children don’t really have any tools to navigate their finances when they leave home and set out on their own. For so many of us, our first exposure to finances is from the credit card application that comes in the mail and promises us we can have everything we need (and want) even if we don’t have the cash in our wallets. And it often goes downhill from there.
Enter Navigating Your Finances God’s Way!
When I talk to former participants, I am always encouraged by their feedback and excited to bring this ministry to even more people. Inevitably, some of the people I talk to have had ups and downs since they first started on this journey, but the principles have been engrained in them and they know in their hearts that their financial situation will never need to feel hopeless.
Once our eyes have been opened to God’s economy and his plan for our lives, unlike Adam and Eve, we don’t have to hang our heads in shame. We are able to take the tools we’ve been given, together with forgiveness from our merciful God, and rewrite our own financial story.
It can take some time to release the control we hold over our financial situation, but once we do, we can be at peace because we have turned everything over to God.
“Happy the one who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding.” ~Proverbs 3:13
