Tell Your Money Where You Want It to Go

In Proverbs 21:5 it says, “Plan carefully and you will have plenty; if you act too quickly, you will never have enough.” (GNT)

Most everyone wants to be financially responsible. And if you’re a follower of Jesus, you want to experience God’s blessing in your finances. One step in reaching those goals is to plan your spending—to develop the spiritual habit of budgeting.

A budget is simply planned spending. It’s telling your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went. The only way to meet your financial goals is, first, to determine how you want to use your money and then, to make a plan for it to happen that way.

A lot of people think financial freedom comes from making more money. It doesn’t, It comes from spending less. Financial freedom is not based on how much you make; it’s based on how you spend what you make. You can be financially free at almost any level of income.

If you don’t know how to manage money at your current level, you aren’t going to know how to manage more. (Read Matthew 25:14-30). No matter how much or how little income you have, you need to learn how to plan your spending.

Proverbs 21:5 says, “Plan carefully and you will have plenty; if you act too quickly, you will never have enough” (GNT). In today’s culture, “acting too quickly” equates to impulse buying—spontaneous, unplanned spending. Impulse buying has this attitude: You see it and you want it, so you get it, not thinking about the longer term consequences.

How do you break the habit of impulse buying? You nip it in the budget! You set up a plan and tell your money where you want it to go. Then you simply shop less and say no.

Study after study has shown that if you shop less, you spend less. If you’re in debt, for example, the last place you need to go to relax is the mall. If you don’t want to get stung, stay away from the bees!

These are not new, deep insights. But they are certainly hard to follow. It takes real discipline to change spending habits and hard work to write out a budget and stick to it.

But on the days when it’s most difficult, remember that God is with you and he wants what is best for you. He wants to see your faithfulness in money management. And he will help you to take all the necessary steps to become a responsible steward of what he’s given you.

Also steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty (refer back to the story of the “Tortoise and the Hare”). I should never look for quick and easy answers. I need to strive to be a diligent servant of God. In this area steady plodding will bring prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty. If I plan carefully I will have plenty; if I act too quickly, I'll never have enough.

There are several resources you can use to learn to manage your money and put together a spending plan. “Financial Peace University” from Dave Ramsey will provide foundations for this and many other behavioral aspects of managing money.  As a “Ramsey Preferred Coach” I too can assist you in one-on-one coaching sessions to help you.