My question to you is this, “what are people, more specifically our children, learning about us from how we are spending our money?” Every time we make a purchase we show our children we value that item purchased at least as much, if not more than the money we used to purchase it with, and we also show them we believe that was the best use for the money. Whether we think so or not, that is what our children learn when we make a purchase. All money we receive in this life is a resource given to us from God. How did we “make” the money we have? Well, we got our money by using the physical attributes God created and by using our brains God also created. God is the only reason by which we are able to make money. Therefore, our money belongs to God, and we should use our (God’s) money to have an impact on His kingdom. Okay, let’s get back to money and our children. Let’s look at some questions to spur our thoughts. What do we want our children to learn from what we purchase? How do we want them to spend (or save) their (or God’s) money? What do we want them to value? What do we want our kids to see us value? Believe it or not those questions are answered by the way we spend, save, and otherwise use, the monetary resources given to us by God. Our whole life-our time, our money, family, friends, our house, everything should be used as an eternal investment into God’s Kingdom. Are you investing? I don’t want to tell you how to spend (or save) the financial resources given to you by God, I just want you to walk away from reading this thinking about what your children have learned from you so far, and if you want your children to learn something different from watching the way you handle your financial resources. Do you need to keep doing what you have been doing, or do you need to make changes because you want your children to learn something different? You can learn almost everything about a person just by looking at how they spend their money and their time. In conclusion, people, more specifically our children, are watching how we live our lives. Lessons are learned from how we handle our finances, we just need to make sure the lessons learned are good and point to a Kingdom oriented mindset.
Written by Michael Woodfin
