The other day, Kimberly and I were having a family business meeting discussing our family budget. Looking at the rising cost of most everything, we decided to watch our spending a bit more closely in a few categories. Through a combination of coupons, sale shopping, and simply cutting back, we thought we could save some money. In the course of this conversation, Kimberly asked me if I prayed about some of the purchases we were making. My response was both truthful and telling, “No.”
As a Pastor this is probably not the answer you expected me to give. As a Christian, this is probably not the answer I should give, but it was truthful. Many times I run through my day living life and spending money with little regard for how that action fits into God’s desired direction for my life. Knowing that we all fall short of God’s glorious standards and that Christ’s death offers full payment for my shortcomings and Christ’s life offers me a hope of a better tomorrow, I am not fully discouraged by my ACTION of not prayerfully approaching all areas of my life. Upon further reflection, though, the REASONS for my action are something that I need to address and reprogram through the renewing of my mind by God’s truth.
To some degree I (probably like many of you) can operate in life in a sacred/secular split. I turn to God for the spiritual stuff, then turn to myself for everything else. The reality is, however, that God has much wisdom for all areas of my life . . . including both the spiritual AND the physical. This conversation with my wife was a great reminder for me to recalibrate my life and trust in our Heavenly Father for all things . . . a point we will see coming clear in the passage we are going to be looking at in this Sunday’s sermon from Luke 5:1-11.
We are in week 3 of our 5 week series entitled “A Father’s Stories,” where we have been looking deeper at some of the Bible stories we tell our children, but have rich meaning for us today as grown-up children of our Heavenly Father. This week we will be looking at Luke 5:1-11 and Jesus calling of Simon to be His disciple. Simon learned to trust God with all things, and my hope is that by looking at this passage, we might learn to do the same. I look forward to worshipping with you this Sunday at Wildwood in one of our two identical services at 9:30 or 10:50 AM. Hope to see you there!
Feel free to post your thoughts, comments, or questions about this series in the comments section of this blog post.