anxiety over money

We live during a time when people are losing their jobs and wondering about their futures. As Americans, we've been taught to plan ahead. Conventional wisdom is that it's good for most of us to own a house, now get our 401-K's or an equivalent as high as possible, so that we can enjoy our retirement. But like Sharon told us yesterday, we've made gods out of all these things. Not necessarily wrong in themselves, but wrong if we're depending on them, rather than on God.

For the most part I worry very little about our finances. Deb handles them (we've traded back and forth, but she does better than I on them, so I let her have at it, now for some time). Something happened which made me wonder what was going on, though nothing Deb did wrong at all. But this threw me for a loop on Saturday. But in that, I was able to pray and think through Scripture. And when I arrived at church on Sunday morning, I was asked to read the Luke passage of the parable of the rich fool along with some of Luke's equivalent of what I was looking at in Matthew (the entire passage). Then Sharon gave us a message that hit the spot. Quite an encouraging time, though because of being so tired, I did not make it through the Dallas Willard material on it in The Divine Conspiracy (but will do so today, or very soon).

Do we really trust God? Are we living as those who seek God's kingdom and his righteousness? Or is it to pile up many goods and possessions for ourselves? Most of us are not perfect in this. We need to take an unflinching look at ourselves, in prayer. And seek to grow in our faith and commitment to God on this. Being rich toward God is key for us, which involves doing good for others.

Many will be tested during this time, perhaps the next year or so. How well will we do? And we must remember we're all in this together. Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Not give me. Like Paul, I want to learn to be content in whatever circumstance. As long as I can serve God through Christ. And in that, know God will give us all we need.

Just kind of preliminary thoughts on this. What wisdom might you like to share with us- or anything in regard to this?

quote for the week: Dallas Willard on freedom from anxiety over money (in the section "And the Lilies"- Matthew 6)

...when our trust is in things that are absolutely beyond any risk or threat, and we have learned from good sources, including our own experience, that those things are there, anxiety is just groundless and pointless. It occurs only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were trusting things - like human approval and wealth - that were certain to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry, while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with thanksgiving.

Paul...got it: "Don't be anxious about anything," he says, "but in every situation, with prayer and supplications, with thanksgiving, let God know what you want. And the peace which God himself has will, beyond anything we can intellectually grasp, stand guard over your hearts and minds, which are within the reality of Jesus the Anointed" (Phil. 4:6-7).

We will find all this so much easier, of course, once we have been freed from our old dependency upon the opinions of others and upon our "treasure" of material goods.

Dallas Willard from The Divine Conspiracy, 212, 213.