Does God Really Care About My Checkbook?

Integrating Our Faith With Our Finance...

I just had a birthday. April 1st. I am fifty four. My grandchildren gasped when their Nana told them how old I had become. They looked at me with amazement and pity. In their eyes, old as dirt. And yet, I think of myself as quite young. Or at least most days, I certainly don't feel my years. I mention this in the context of this article for two reasons.

One, I am now more convinced then at any point in my life that I truly need and want the wisdom and blessings of my God. The holy scriptures and the collected writings of the church somehow seem full of new treasures that in my youth, and hurried ambitious young adult days, I overlooked. Secondly, it seems to me that we are living in a time in history when every person in the faith will find great comfort in a careful integration of their living faith with their daily management of their life and resources. We want, and we need, the truth. Peace of mind is much to valuable a commodity to compromise by an act of omission or commission in the management of our money and opportunities. I speak, teach, and write about the practical aspects of money. A priest introduced me this way. "Here is the fellow to talk to us about filthy lucre." And he sat down. The other priests snickered. Who says priests do not have a cultivated sense of humor? Certainly not the most robust of introductions, and perhaps there must be reasons for such thoughts. Nevertheless, I took the podium. For some, there is an uneasy alliance between the spiritual, and the temporal. How many others feel this way? It has been my privilege to speak in hundreds of churches to literally thousands of Catholic Christians that demonstrated by their attendance a sincere desire to look at money, opportunity, and management of resources through the filter of the Christian faith. A circuit riding evangelist once said the most sensitive nerve in the human body is the one attached to the wallet. When we talk about money; the earning, investing, giving, managing, and spending, we are certainly in an emotionally charged environment. Why so? No other demonstration of our real priorities is quite so immediately transparent. Our checkbook (now our debit cards) reveals us. It reveals our likes, our fears, our priorities, and certainly, our faith. We fund our focus. At every level. When I read, re-read, and say from the heart the Lord's prayer, the phrase, "Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," it now, at fifty four years of age, becomes a liberating verse. I recognize that if the earth actually functioned as heaven functions, it would probably be a much different daily experience, and certainly a safer place to see my grandchildren grow up. I haven't always thought this way. In my younger days it was far more important to make my plans and then ask God to bless them. It was more important to become wealthy than to be concerned with my Father's business. It was more important to achieve double digit returns than follow the source of such returns. And, for some reason, I relegated my expression of faith to trying to do what was right, and left spiritual priorities to the "full time professionals" within the church. After all, it is what they are trained and paid to do! I had an opportunity to read the constitutions, decrees, and declarations of Vatican II. In a section on The Renewal of the Temporal Order, I stumbled into this statement: "Lay people ought themselves to take on as their distinctive task, this renewal of the temporal order." It seems the Bishops felt it important for the laity to participate in the renewal of the temporal order. About the same time, I began re-reading the Gospel accounts of Christ life and teachings. A slow, yet distinct transformation in thought began to occur. What if Christ really meant it? What if the real expectation is for the experience on earth to mirror the experience created by the reign and rule of our Father in the heavenly realms? The prayer of Christ, given as a model for you and me encourages us to ask for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Over the last twenty years this has provoked me to ask these questions: * Does a Christian work differently, with more diligence, punctuality, and dependability than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian provide a different type of Legacy than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian invest with a different filter than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian manage debt differently than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian give money differently than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian conduct his affairs, honor his contracts, and keep his word differently than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian manage his employees, opportunities, and resources differently than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian facilitate change in the body politic differently than a non-Christian?
* Does a Christian utilize media, marketing, and sales promotion differently than a non-Christian? The questions keep coming. I settled some time ago that God is concerned with the entries in my checkbook. They immediately reflect just how much my actions follow my request in prayer, "Thy Kingdom come." In my own, rather limited sphere of influence, the answers to these questions are allowing me to discover practical methodologies "to renew the temporal order". And by the way, fifty four is a terrific age!

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