A Good Steward

A Good Steward

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.

Romans 13:8

Nothing robs someone’s peace more quickly than a pile of bills and not enough money to pay them. It’s easy to spend money and get overextended. What is harder is to make the sacrifices required to do something about it. The Amish are examples of what is possible when we control what we have instead of allowing it to control us.

If the Amish don’t have credit cards, how do they pay their bills when there’s too much month at the end of the money? As Bishop Eli King said, “You gotta make up what you don’t have; don’t borrow it.” It goes completely against the grain for the Amish to go into hock to pay their expenses. Instead, they will find extra jobs or things to sell to come up with the extra cash. . . .

Friends of mine were scraping for the last few hundred bucks they needed to pay moving expenses and closing costs as they moved from a rented home to their own place. “Nothing is nailed down,” Rudy told me, smiling sheepishly. “We sold everything we could think of at a garage sale and then on Craigslist.”

“Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender,” says Proverbs 22:7. When we owe people money, our actions must be focused on meeting our financial obligation to repay the debt. When we are free of our debts to men, then we can look to the Lord for direction in our finances. We are also free to serve and to give as He desires.

Turn to God, and ask Him to help you arrive at a place of financial freedom. It’s only then that you’ll be able to freely distribute what God entrusts into your care.

Dear heavenly Father, help me to do the hard things that will get me to a place of financial freedom so that I owe no one anything but love.