Leaning on My Own Understanding!

Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (ESV)

Well, this ones a little hard, a little personal and was hard for me to swallow but my God has called me out, showed me I was deceived by the enemy and mostly...ahhhh...I really gotta quit sugar coating it.....I was completely wrong!!!!!

I have come to learn that money is a root to many problems in a marriage, if you have it, if you don't, what to do with it, whats needed and what is just a want and for whom. Many heart to hearts with friends have shown time and again the main issue surrounding discord in their homes circled around finances and my story is no different.  I am a planner, saver, cover all my bases at all times type of gal. It is bad, when my husband would ever ask how much money was in the account I would give him a total, his response would always be "ok, now how much money do we really have in the bank" because he knew I was giving him the total of what I FELT we had to spend not what we actually had in the account.  As I have dug deep into places I never wanted to return to, I have found an excuse for myself, that I am this way because of my childhood, I saw and suffered through a lot and it made me who I am, I cant help it..... its not my fault!!

Well....Everything I just said to excuse my behavior is lies the enemy has filled me with to keep my eyes from seeing the truth. He has used my past, my insecurities, and my hurts to riddle me with anxiety and to turn my focus onto making sure I nor my family ever have to experience what I did as a child. There were times when I was young we didn't have power, had little or no heat in the winter and there was a span of about 2 years and 2 different houses that we didn't have hot water (due to it being gas heated).  So now you have a small glimpse of where my anxiety comes from and this gave the enemy breeding ground to cause discord, trust issues, and build walls in my marriage and yes I fueled the fire because Im stubborn and felt I was justified in my thinking! I thought my way was the right way to prevent catastrophe in our lives.

My husband was more of a free spirit, an in the moment kind of guy, a figure it out as we go type of man, which is one of the reasons I fell in love with him, he tested me, brought me out of my comfort zone, made me do and see things that I never thought possible, he tore down the walls I had strategically set up to protect me, he taught me how to trust what I couldn't see yet.  As life happened and there was a period I was left to handle everything on my own due to him being away and unable to provide for our family, I rebuilt some of those walls and added a few new ones trapping myself in close proximity with the enemy who was ready to kill, steal and destroy me and my family and all God had brought us through. There are pros and cons for each of our ways of handling finances neither is right nor wrong, you need a little of both to survive.

What God has revealed to me I wish I had been open enough to Him to see years ago.  My life verse is Matthew 6:34, if you have traveled with me in just about any season in my life you know why. I AM A WORRIER!!!  Its BAD!! God brought this verse to my attention around 2007/2008 when I desperately needed it. As my studies and relationship with God have grown I have relied on that verse time and time again. It is sticky noted throughout my house, car, bible, journals, my forehead everywhere!! I thought I had it down pat, that I lived by it, until here recently, you see when you ask God to prepare you, to form you into the woman He has called you to be, for the purpose He intends, sometimes its through loving discipline showing you that your ways are not His, that you got deceived and twisted along the way. He shows you your weakness so He can give you His strength. He gets into those justified places with valid excuses to why you do what you do and shows you how wrong you really were. I am thankful He has shown me what he has and given me the discernment to see the ways the enemy has manipulated my thinking. The enemy knows I'm a worrier and he uses it. It is a crack in me that he uses anytime he can to slowly and strategically separate me from God and His ways.  I have recited over and over again "worry about today, do not worry about tomorrow". Do you see what the enemy has done, he has taken Gods word, His instructions and altered them just enough so I look over what God is really commanding of me. He has my focus off just enough so I'm not sharp enough to see his lies. Time and time again I have repeated what I thought to be Gods Word "Don't worry about tomorrow, worry about today it has its own troubles". If its today, tomorrow, yesterday it doesn't matter Im still worrying which means the enemy is winning. Im not trusting God, I just moved my worry to today instead of saving it for tomorrow. The enemy is so cunning, so slick, so good at what he does; by adding, omitting, spinning ONE WORD in your mind, in your thought process and can imprison you for years and take a crack and turn it in to the Grand Canyon between you and God, hindering your entire relationship with God and others. He can wreck your total understanding of The Word of God. He will twist Gods Word to make you comfortable, make it relevant to your situation, to fit your circumstances so to make you feel better about your sin or justify it all together!! But its all still lies and a crack becomes a canyon! What I have finally learned in Matthew 6 is; to worry about nothing, be anxious of nothing and to not give into the enemy who is trying to take your trust and hope out of God by putting it in flesh and bones. God is commanding you to trust in all things, to know He has your back and will give you all you need even if you can't always see it coming. The Lord is not a stockpiler with warehouses of blessing to give at a specific time and place. Labeled. Prepackaged. Waiting. He provides your needs as you need them, in that very moment for His glory. Each day is different and what you may think you need tomorrow may no longer be relevant as the hour approaches. God is AWESOME like that.

So where I thought my husbands free, in the moment attitude was a weakness in his character and my attention to saving, and planning was a strength I possessed, I now see I was wrong. His freedom to not worry and be anxious as I did was a strength, a hope, a trust I did not possess, a living example of Matthew 6:34 right under my nose. There is a call to be a good stewart of all that God gives you but there is also the command not to store up, so to provide for yourself, denying God the ability to provide for you as He desires and sees fit. I see now my husbands actions as a blessing and a lesson to my own disobedience to God and His Word; I pray for forgiveness for not accepting his leadership and trusting him nor trusting God in this area of my life for so long.  Sometimes those things that annoy us and make us so different is what God uses to teach us, refine us, to bring us closer to Him, if we will just quit fighting for just a moment to be right and look inward and test our thoughts through scripture we may find there was more there than we ever thought possible!