time out: a quote from my reading

Time out: I know I owe you a post on "going green", which I'm quite eager to write about, but in the essense of time, today's post is an excerpt from my reading.

This is from the book The Sermon on the Mount / The Character of a Disciple by Daniel Doriani. pg 166-7

"To love God with the mind means, third, to speak about money in ways that reiterate his truth. For example, we should not start to make our financial decisions with "Can we afford it?" Instead, we should ask, "Does this glorify God? Does it make me a better servant?" Parents must especially take care not to answer their children's petitions for toys and games simply by declaring, "We can't afford it." Those four words end the conversation very effectively at some ages and keep parents from seeming insensitive. But the subliminal message is, "The adults don't make the decisions in this family, money does." When we make decisions, we should let God and his law have the final word, not money."

This struck a chord within me... How much my mind needs to be re-wired when it comes to money! I've been pondering recently the degree to which I'm affected by marketing, advertising, and our generally extraodinarily materialistic society. It's scary. Growing up in my community/culture has programmed me to think, act, and make decisions according to a particular financial worldview. Eww, it's not pretty. It's not Christlike. It's not a Kingdom-minded perspective.

This is one of my "character-goals" for the summer: to take a hard look at my spending THOUGHT-life. I'm not a big spender these days; I am, in fact, a very poor student. But this is a good time to examine the deeper issue of my attitude towards all-things-money. What do I covet? What kind of lifestyle do my spending habits perpetuate? What triggers in me a desire to spend money? What do I really need and what I do try to slide into that category unnecessarily? When my sister-in-law Ashlee was here a couple of weeks ago, she was a good accountability in conversation to stop myself and say, "I don't need a new pair of black sandals, just because my flat, casual pair that I wear with everything is falling apart." Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. :) My flip flops or dressy sandals will do just fine, won't they?

This is just one example of the many ways I see my ungodly thoughts influencing ungodly spending. I'm not against a new pair of sandals (a girl LOVES her shoes!!). I'm against anything but God driving my decision making, all the way down to how I spend money. (almost wrote my money...but i'm not sure that's true either! ugh, i've got a lot of growing to do)

May His Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven - starting in me!