Your Custom Text Here
Part of living a disciplined life is exercising financial discipline.
Among many things, that means living within a budget.
If you don’t have a monthly budget, create one—one well within your means is best.
Give every dollar a job and watch how your life changes.
Living within a budget may sound restricting, but just like every other area of your life, that discipline brings freedom.
We continue our reading of Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life together this week by turning our time and attention to the topic of Stewardship. If you’d like to know more about what we’re doing, you can read about it here. Last week, we discussed the discipline of service. In that post, we discovered that God places a high call on the Christian’s life. We also learned that the daily dying a Christian does is to sin and selfishness.
Each week I issue something similar to the following reminder: “No one,” Whitney said, “makes himself or herself acceptable to God by trying to emulate Jesus' example of service.” While Christ may be the perfect example of how to live, copying Jesus won’t save you; trusting in Him will. Practice the Spiritual Disciplines because they get you more of Jesus and help you become more like Him.
I would venture a guess that most of the stressful or anxious moments of your life, and mine, are in some form or fashion linked to time or money. “The clock and the dollar,” Whitney said, “are such substantial factors in so many parts of life that we must consider their role in any serious discussion of godly living.” Any effort to grow in Christlikeness must at one point or another take a look at how our two most precious resources are spent.
The connection between how we spend money and stewardship is an easy one to make, and most often where our minds go when we hear the word. Stewardship however is about more than deploy God’s money, but also how we spend our time. “Godliness,” Whitney said, “is the result of a biblically disciplined spiritual life. But at the heart of a disciplined spiritual life is the disciplined use of time.” I am thankful Whitney makes this connection and leads his writing on stewardship with it. I can be so focused on steward our finances in way that makes much of God, and give little thought to time being a reflection of the same.
Whitney offers the following ten biblical reasons to use time wisely. We would do well to hit pause for a moment and consider each.
The disciplined use of time however, is only half of Whitney’s aim. Our disciplined use of money is his second target for us. How we spend money is a clear indicator of where our heart is. “How we use it reveals who we are, for it manifests our priorities, our values, and our heart.” Most of us play our spending habits and routines close to the vest for this very reason. One thoughtful glance at our budget would lay us bare.
All our growth in godliness would be shone false if we neglected our pocketbook as in our journey to become more like Jesus. “How we use money for ourselves, for others, and especially for the sake of God’s kingdom,” Whitney said, “is from first to last a spiritual issue.” The change of heart and life we are after is most poignantly seen in our use of money.
“Growth in godliness” Whitney said, “will express itself in a growing understanding of these ten New Testament principles of giving:
Most churches do the body a great disservice by not ask anything of the believer. The more I read this book, the more I realize how seldom the pulpit calls Christians to pursue God in the Spiritual Disciplines. We seem to be settling for good or good enough, instead of striving for greatness. This book doesn’t beat me down however, but provides just the right encouragement I need week after week.
I enjoyed Whitney’s discussion of time. Even among churches that encourage believers to discipline themselves for godliness, few talk about how people should spend their time. Instead of moving to reorient people’s minds, the church tends to concede the area of time management to the culture. We have the highest and grandest reason of all to leverage our time well—the pursuit of Christlikeness. Becoming more and more and more like Jesus should not only be our chief concern but the lens through which we make decisions about how we spend our time.
By way of happy coincidence, I audited my time as I read through the chapter. It wasn’t something I planned out in advance, but rather an idea that took hold as I opened the book. Looking at my time in ten minute chunks throughout the day helped me see not only where my time is going, and what I’m accomplishing with it, but the times of day I am at my best. Those are the windows of time for intentional pursuit of not only important tasks but God Himself.
My mind is at its peak from 5am to noon for example. This is when I do my best thinking and am most efficient. After lunch, I’m much slower and my mind not as crisp. As a result I plan to spend time in God’s Word, prayer and working on Scripture memory when my mind is at its best.
We will continue with the next chapter (chapter nine) of the book next Sunday. We’re in the middle of a series on Spiritual Disciplines, and would love for you to get the book and join in. The chapters can be read in any order so there is no reason you couldn’t jump in and run with us. Click here to see what we’ve covered so far.
Please feel free to post your reflections, and thoughts in the comment section below. Simply share what caught your eye, or stirred your heart as you read.
My wife Hannah and I are a great team. We run our own business together, serve together at our church, and split most household chores evenly. We are truly better together. Something about the way our personalities, gifts and talents weave together forms something stronger, and more capable than either of us individually.
We are constantly communicating with each other over any number of things; shoots we’re working on, client meetings that need to be scheduled and every little detail that needs following up on to run a successful business. It takes a lot of time, and good communication patterns to pull it off.
If we aren’t careful however, the business could quickly become all we talk about morning, noon, and night. Much like parents have to remain vigilant to talk about things other than their kids, small business owners have to fight the temptation to make life revolve around the business. Far too many sacrifice relationships, personal health and family at the altar of a success. They lose themselves in their work, and talk shop around the clock. It takes a lot of work, patience and solid communication patterns to build a business while fighting for a good marriage.
I recently sat down with Hannah to talk about it all. Communication plays such a pivotal role in the health and strength of all our relationships, especially marriage. I wanted to better understand exactly what our communication patterns are, and get her take on what we do that helps us maintain balance. I also wanted to hear exactly where we need to improve.
photo credit: katie june Photography
The major theme of our conversation was that communication was as vital to the health of our marriage as water is to the body—it’s a must. “One of the biggest reasons relationships don’t succeed,” Hannah said, “is the lack of communication.” Failing to communicate about any number of things creates not just tension but division. It allows two people to live in separate worlds, doing there own thing. “It is vital,” Hannah continued, “that husband and wife communicate on a daily basis, not just staying on the surface, but what’s on their hearts, minds, worries, fears, future goals and dreams.” Discussing the weather, and the score of the game isn’t enough—you’ve got to dive deeper. Talk about everything going on in your world—what’s got you worried or excited, what’s driving you crazy, and what you’re looking forward to.
“I think this is something,” Hannah said, “we do really well now, but haven’t always.” We make time each week to have deeper, heart-level conversations, but we haven’t always. Early in our marriage, I worked long hours, and spent most of my day driving to and from the office. Each night I’d work on our business—doing the books, client meetings, etc.—and on the weekends we’d shoot a wedding. Our schedule never stopped, it was always go, go, go, and I thought we were communicating well enough.
Most of our conversations revolved around work, and our business—we had little time to talk about other things. At least, that’s what I thought. In reality, I wasn’t being intentional or creating time for deeper conversations by asking good questions. I was on cruise control. Fast forward a few years, and we’ve landed on a pretty good rhythm. “I enjoy,” Hannah shared, “that we go on at least one walk a day with our pups and just have that ½ hour of quality talk time.” It doesn’t have to be long, but finding time to talk about deeper things breaths life into your marriage. We use this time to talk about everything. When asked what she found most helpful and exciting about them, Hannah mentioned “Future goals, where we are in our business, finances, how we can serve each other each week, fears, excitements about having a baby.”
Everyone has a different story and history regarding finances. Some have handled things extremely well and others haven’t. Either way, finances are one of the handful of topics you can’t avoid talking about. The stakes are too high. One little mistake can land everyone in trouble. That’s why Hannah and I take a look at our budget every week. “This is an awesome way,” Hannah said, “for us to know what our week will look like. Date night out or in? Where are we doing great and where can we do better? I am thankful for a husband who is organized and always on top of our finances, even when I am not.”
Every Monday, I sit down and update our budget. At some point that day, I’ll share how we are doing with Hannah. We talk about what areas are on track, and what areas we need to keep an eye on. “Don’t be afraid,” Hannah said, “of these conversations. Lean into them, learn from past mistakes and have weekly chats to keep short accounts. Being a team means being honest and open especially in the tough conversations.” We’ve found that talking about finances on a regular basis, keeps us on the same page, and avoids that big blow up fight about being way over budget.
Early each week, Hannah and I sit down to go over what’s on the calendar for the coming week. “It helps us know,” Hannah said, “what’s going on in the other person’s world and how we can serve and pray for one another. It allows us to always be on the same page and align expectations.” Our weekly schedule conversations give us each insight into how we can care for the other. If I know Hannah has a ton of photo shoots in the coming week, I’ll know that it would serve her well for me to take care of the dog stuff and have dinner started before she gets home. If she has important meetings or just a full schedule, I’ll know how I can be praying for her. Talk about your schedules, sync your calendars, and discuss what you’ve got going on.
While finances and schedules might be once a week conversations, we have a series of ongoing talks throughout the week about expectations. These are some of the most important one to two minute discussions we have each day. “We all have expectations,” Hannah explains, “about what our day will look like whether we know it or not.” Everyone has an expectation about everything. “It can be as simple,” Hannah continued, “as asking what each other’s expectation is for dinner one night.” Expectations don’t have to be these big, ambiguous things. It’s usually the little one’s that cause the biggest trouble. “Simply talking about what you expect,” Hannah said “reduces the likelihood of frustration.” You may find that you had differing expectations about certain things, that if left uncommunicated could lead to conflict. Get those things out on the table, in a casual manner so you can get on the same page. Develop the habit of regularly asking one another what your expectations are.
I asked Hannah how she would grade our communication. “An 8.” Hannah said, “We could always do better.” That’s a point worth discussing—there’s always room for improvement. No matter how hard you work, or how much time you’ve been together, you can do better. None of us will ever reach the mountaintop on this one, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying. Go for a walk, curl up on the couch with a blanket and some soft music playing or have a private dinner just the two of you. Talk about all the things going on in your world, share your hopes and fears. Hopefully there will be areas you can celebrate. “We do great, Hannah shares, “discussing future goals, business plans and day to day expectations.” Relish those victories. Inevitably there will also be stuff to work on. “We could continue,” Hannah said, “working on taking the next step in talking about how we are doing relationally and spiritually.”
Don’t get down when things like this pop up. Lean in and work on them. In the end, be excited that you’re working together and heading in a new and better direction.