Mark's Blog

I woke this morning to the report that Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world. Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico, worth 53.5 billion dollars, edged Gates out by just $500 million dollars. Also, Forbes reported that there were 1,011 billionaires in the world, with 40% of them being in the U.S. . (http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/03/10/forbes.list/index.html?hpt=C2)

That news left me thinking about budgets, mostly our personal budget which is really tight this month with way too many days left.

Early in our married life, Sherrylee and I were committed to making the major decisions of life on the basis of what we believed was right, and the financial impact was not relevant to the decision.  This attitude was the result of compartmentalizing our financial decisions and our spiritual decisions, which we both believe now to have been a mistake.  God made that very plain to us.

We now have a new set of principles that we work under.  I believe that they represent a much integrated approach to faith and life.

1. Everything belongs to God. Every financial decision is framed with the words, “It’s God’s_____, so what does that mean we should do?”  Includes money, time, energy, health, children—yeah, everything!
2. God is lavishly generous.  I don’t believe God is conservative.  Look at the descriptive words in Ephesians 2: God’s “…great love for us, who is rich in mercy . . . that He might show the incomparable riches.”  I would like to be lavishly generous like God. If I were, I would be godlier.
3. The purpose of wealth is to do for others.  The sin of the rich fool was that he thought his barns and wealth were for himself to enjoy. Wouldn’t it be a different story if he had said he was storing for the benefit of the poor and needy?  “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2 Cor. 9:11.
4. We walk by faith and not by sight.   This is the litmus test, i.e, what makes Christians different from just good accountants.  Help me figure out what this looks like though.  I do believe it means making financial decisions based on what God can do, not what Wall Street did last year; I do believe it means taking financial risks for the good of others; I do believe it means prayerfully attempting what seems to be crazy to auditors!  This one gets me into trouble sometimes with the powers that be.  (I still think I’m right !)

I’ve heard Irene Johnson Gatewood, long-time early missionary to Germany,  tell the story often of how she marched into the banker’s office in Germany to ask for a loan of thousands of German Marks to purchase property which is now Camp Gemϋnden.  She was a foreigner, had no collateral, no personal wealth at all, and was making a ridiculous request by anyone’s standards, and yet she believed this was important for the advance of the kingdom, so she did it. The banker believed in her—even more in her faith in God–and made her not only this loan, but continued to help her with the camp’s finances for many years.  Camp Gemϋnden has been the birthplace of faith for many people and continues now almost forty years later to be strategic for the work in western Europe—because one woman walked by faith and not by sight.  That just feels like the right answer to me!

Question:  What are the financial principles you use in making decisions?