unexpectedturns
When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
I Corinthians 2: 13-16

My family, namely my husband and I, have been challenged as of late to take what some might call drastic steps of faith. In our pursuit of all that the Lord would call us to do, it has become evident that it’s time get every aspect of our lives in line with the Word of God. And the main aspect in our lives that’s lacking is our finances.

I read the book The Blessed Life by my pastor, Robert Morris, two years ago. I read it and wanted to live what it talks about. The book is a life-changing revelation of what it’s like to live with reckless faith. And so my husband and I decided to start tithing faithfully, the full ten percent, not just whatever we could scrounge up as we had made a habit of doing. It has been a blessing to see God’s right hand of provision on us since we made that decision. Bills that shouldn’t have gotten paid got paid. Checks we weren’t expecting came. Clients I never dreamed of called me up. Blessing has piled upon blessing and we both know that it’s because of our obedience to the scriptures when it comes to tithing.

But despite all our blessings, we just couldn’t seem to get ahead financially. We always seemed to be “just making it.” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I expected, by tithing, to become rich and worry free. That’s not what I expected at all. But I also thought that things would get a little better, somehow, in regard to our finances. I puzzled over the situation for months, never really expressing to my husband just how confused I was about it. So I decided to pick the book back up again and see if I had missed anything.

And then it hit me.

The Blessed Life lines up steps we, as Christians, need to take regarding our finances in order to get them in line with the Word of God and in line for abundant blessings. The first step is to get out of debt. When I read that, I thought, “Well, we’ll just pay minimum payments and get out of debt the slow way. But we’ll stop using credit cards.” And we did. We stopped using them. And we were faithful to make the minimum payments. But if you have a credit card, you know that minimum payments take about 10,000 years to pay off even a tiny amount of debt. They do that on purpose, so that they can get as much interest from you as possible. (Two thousand dollars of debt and it only costs $25/month? Sweet!)

What I failed to consider was that by taking the “easy” way out, I was really taking the long, hard, beating of way out. While I watched others who sacrificially laid their finances at the throne become financially free and blessed, I wondered why we were still “slaves to the lender.”

That’s when I asked God to open my eyes to what I was missing. And He did. By his Grace, He did. He challenged me to stop looking at our life the way I thought it was “supposed to look.” You know the way – get married, get a house, get nice cars, have cute kids, trade in your cars for nicer cars, trade in your house for a bigger one. Look like the Joneses. Keep up with them, at all costs. That’s the path we thought we wanted, too. So when God challenged me to throw that idea away, I fought Him for a while.

“What, you mean, do something drastic to get rid of debt? Like what? Get rid of a car?”

But that wasn’t drastic enough.

“Move into a tiny apartment?”

But that wasn’t drastic enough, either.

“Live in a box on the street corner?”

I was just getting snippy by that point.

“What if we moved in with someone?…”

That was it. But I was absolutely mortified to bring it up to my husband. I just knew he was going to laugh in my face. Or look at me like I’d lost my mind. But instead, to my utter shock, when I suggested it, he actually stopped, pondered, and didn’t say a word for a minute or two. That’s when I knew he was truly considering it. When he came back and said he agreed that it was probably the best idea, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, utterly couldn’t believe it. It was then that I knew it had to be God’s idea. So then I had the task of mentioning it to my parents. I decided to go for the joking route.

“I’m tired of paying minimum payments on credit cards and not having any money to help anyone else or do ANYTHING else. Maybe we’ll just move in with you guys. Heh.” *wink, wink* *nod, nod*

“Well come on over!” was my mother’s reaction.

Wait, what? Is this real life?

Yes, this is real life when God orchestrates the movements. So here we are, about to move in with my parents for a season while we get completely debt-free. Let me tell you, I understand that scripture I posted at the top in a way I never would have before. We have had all manner of crazy looks, protests, questions, and downright rudeness when we tell people what we’re doing.

“Why would you EVER move in with her parents?”

“Are you giving to the church and LOSING YOUR HOUSE? STOP GIVING TO THE CHURCH!!!”

“Are you crazy? You can’t do that! You’ll ruin your life! You’ll ruin your marriage!”

But you see, we know that while it will certainly present its own set of challenges, the choice we’ve made to do something radical about our situation is completely and totally God’s plan for our lives. And because of that faith, we’re not scared. In fact, truth be told, we’re both excited. We can’t wait to see what’s waiting for us on the other side of this step of faith. We can’t wait to see what God does with our willing hearts. And we can’t wait to bless others the way we’ve been blessed.

If I’ve learned anything about living by faith it’s that you have to expect the unexpected. You have to let go of preconceived notions, you certainly have to let go of your ideas on life, and you have to run with full abandon towards what you know God is telling you. Sometimes it’s weird. Sometimes it’s crazy. Sometimes it’s hard. But always it’s amazing. Always it’s a blessing.

So that’s what my family is doing. We’re running with full speed towards the prize, the blessing that is living by faith. We’re diving in, not sticking our toes in, to the blessed life. And we aren’t looking back. This will be our year of Jubilee!

If you feel like God is telling you to do something, maybe even something challenging or crazy, what’s stopping you? Is it fear of failure? Is it fear that it might not be God’s voice? Is it fear of what others will think of you for doing it?

Let go of those fears and press forward. Keep your eyes on Him, not the naysayers or the potential failures. Never forget that if God is opening the door, He will light the path. Never forget that if you’re not going the right direction, He will stop you in your tracks. Read the Bible and trust. Do what it says. Dive in. All in. And let’s live this Blessed Life with reckless abandon!

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. Proverbs 22:7

I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:14

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. I Corinthians 3:8

And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’ Luke 19:17

God is interested in building His Kingdom. That’s why He is going to entrust funds to people who are proving to Him that they will be good stewards with those funds – giving when God tells them to give. They won’t squander their resources on useless things – they’ll budget their money and be accountable. They will also be good stewards of their time, relationships, and talents. This is the message in the parable of the minas. Jesus makes a similar point in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25). God gives talents to each of us according to our ability, and He expects us to use those talents for Him and for His Kingdom purposes. We will never see God’s miraculous power given to poor stewards!
-Excerpt from The Blessed Life by Robert Morris

(If you haven’t read The Blessed Life yet, do yourself a favor and read it. Go get it. Today.)

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