A WORD TO THE WISE: Proverbs 27: 23-27 "Financial Awareness"

Proverbs 27: 23     Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, andattend to your herds;
24     For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations.
25     When the hay is removed, and the tender grass shows itself, and the herbs of the mountains are gathered in,
26     The lambs will provide your clothing, and the goats the price of a field;
27     You shall have enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household, and the nourishment of your maidservants.

Proverbs 27: 23-27.  I don’t like dealing with money.  I have the ability, and I do it.  I go through financial statements every week, but I don’t like it. 

Like it or not though, the Bible makes clear that while I trust God for financial provision God commands me to do the grunt work of keeping up with what He provides. (Luke 14:28; 19: 13).     

Too often we (I said we , not ya’ll.) just limp blindly from check to check.  However, a check-to-check lifestyle is unsustainable.  No job lasts forever.  No expected raise is ever really guaranteed.  Interest rates change.  The current pay, benefits, and retirement you were promised can be (or have been) taken away.  The days of economic “entitlements” are numbered, and the numbers are counting down.  Even Daddy’s & Mama’s money (or their hustle) may not be enough for you. 

This situation isn’t new, and it isn’t particular to any nation, philosophy, administration, or party.   It’s at least as old as the patriarch Joseph and Pharoah’s dream about 14 cows  (Genesis chapter 41). 

Learn to keep careful track of your own money, bills, and financial progress.  Don’t depend on the RSA, the USA, or the USDA to keep your money straight.  Don’t enter your golden years still living check-to-check off checks that are a fraction of what the previously insufficient funds were. 

In Mark 6: 35-44, Jesus miraculously provided food for a huge number of people.  Read that passage carefully and you’ll see some very specific record keeping and calculations:

-          5,000 men.  Men would consume the largest amount of food.

-          200 denarii.  That is 200 days of wages for a laborer.  At minimum wage in Alabama that comes to a total of about $11,600.  So, if you assume the low, low price of $3.00 per meal, $11,600 couldn’t have fed the men, let alone the men, women, and children.

-          5 barley loaves

-          2 fish

-          12 disciples to head up purchasing and food distribution

-          12 baskets of left-overs taken up after God provided

God provides.  I knooow that God provides.  God’s provision though requires our participation as good stewards who can testify to the penny about how good God has been. 

Yeah, there’s a careful balance to strike between watching your money and looking lustfully at it (Matthew 6: 19-24), but that’s what we gotta do. 

Maybe you don’t look at your finances because you’re scared of what you’ll see.  Look anyway.  Fear’s no excuse for disobedience.

2 Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Maybe you don’t plan with/for your money because you don’t have the economic know-how.  O.K.  Learn.

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 

(I gotta give Mitt Romney this much credit.) The Bible teaches that if you create a “culture” of financial awareness you won’t have to leave a legacy of financial dependence.

----- Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

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