God and Money

Once upon a time, I was on my way to my Financial Management class where I was going to present the following devotion:

Matthew 5:24-27 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

We don’t serve money, we serve the God who provides. So instead of worrying, we can trust. Instead of worrying about what will happen, we can look at our situations through eyes of expectation, knowing that God is faithful and He is able. 

As I was on my way out of the parking lot of the church I work at, I noticed a large orange bag. Curiosity got the better of me, and I put my car in park and got out to inspect the mystery bag. I discovered it was a Nike bag and inside was an empty Nike shoe box. Deciding that the responsible thing to do would be to throw the bag away rather than leave it in the church parking lot, I put it in my car to throw away later. I stopped to get gas, and while my tank was filling, I threw the bag away.

After getting gas and stopping at the bank, I went to Chick-Fil-A to get dinner before my four hour evening class. I placed my order and pulled forward to pay. To my horror, I discovered my debit card was not in my purse, nor was it anywhere in my car, and I had no cash. I pulled up to the window and let the young man working know that I had to cancel my order because I couldn’t find my debit card.

I dreaded the thought of going to class without having eaten and imagined a long night of stomach growls. After canceling my debit card, I saw the irony in losing my debit card and going without dinner while going to Financial Management and giving a devotion on serving God rather than money and not worrying about money and food.

When I got to class, my professor asked how my day was and I said it had gone south quickly and explained what had happened. My professor is amazingly sweet and gave me money to buy something to eat.

Lesson learned: be careful what you teach, your life might turn into the object lesson.