Finances

Focus: Believing God for financial needs 

Lamentations 3:22-24 (NIV) Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.”

The first time I went to summer camp I was six years old. It is a week I will never forget—due to the fact that I was deeply home sick. I cried a lot everyday and scribbled notes to my parents, asking them to come and get me. I wrote on scraps of paper bags or anything else I could find. I gave the notes to my counselor and asked her to mail them to my mom and dad. She probably didn’t…

I vividly remember the awful, awful loneliness I felt that week and how I struggled to remember what my mom and dad even looked like. I watched the gravel road anytime we were outside—thinking maybe I would see our car–and it would be them coming after me. Camp was a couple of hours from where we lived, but it seemed like I was a long, long way from home. You would think after having such a terrible time, that I would never have gone to camp again. But, the next year I was champing at the bit to go back, and I loved going to the same camp every year for seven great years.

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The last year I went to camp, my parents had given me twelve dollars to spend. Twelve dollars was quite a bit of money back in those days and I gave a lot of thought to some nice things in the camp store that I might want to buy. There was no big pitch for offerings at the camp, but the last day, I knew I wanted to put the twelve dollars in the collection…so I did. I felt an amazing surge of joy letting go of the crisp bills. I’d never felt more ‘free’.

The camp ran for several weeks in the summer and I heard they had room for a few more campers to come back the last week. The thing is, there would only be two weeks in between to come up with the money. I knew if I wanted to go, I’d have to pay for it myself—since my parents were always very fair with me and my sisters, and I would be the only one of us going back. I was twelve, so I didn’t have a lot of odd jobs at that point.

It was like a miracle, when money started coming to me from unexpected sources. I was able to go back for the extra week and paid for it all by myself. That summer was the first time in my life I had given a significant amount of my own money to God—and the first time I saw God provide a significant amount of money for a desire of my heart. Another first, was experiencing a truly personal relationship with God as my provider.

Not knowing where money will come from to pay bills can overwhelm you–if you let it. There are a few simple things I have learned about finances that I would like to present to you. When I praise God as the One who supplies everything I need—and thank Him for how He has always given me what I needed in the past, things change. I have learned that God always provides when I don’t hold on too tightly to what I have–and when I don’t neglect to give back to Him a generous portion of what He has given me–with a truly joyful heart…

Declaration: My God has never let me down and has always provided for my needs. Everything I have came from Him and belongs to Him. He can always make a way when there seems to be no way. I will find new strength as I continually look for ways I can joyfully give back to Him with childlike faith.