[gulp] Money.

It's the end of the month, which means that I have exactly $64.91 in my checking account, with $64.00 worth of bills to pay between now and April 30th.

So, today, I had had enough... I went to the grocery store and bought french fries, ketchup, frosting, cake, bananas, granola bars... you get the point. Food that is (mostly) neither healthy, nor actually needed. But I was so tired of having to budget dollar by dollar that I just felt the need to splurge. Put it on my credit card. Pretend it didn't exist.

And while it felt instantaneously satisfying, and yes, I will enjoy those french fries tonight... within minutes of leaving the grocery store, the guilt set in. Shame. I failed in terms of living within my budget for this month.

Now, friends, this is a pretty minor failure. I have the money in other accounts to cover it. I will get a paycheck at the end of the month. My splurge only totaled $16.56. I still only bought the generic brands. (I'm sure some of you are laughing at me now). In reality, I probably need to be a little bit more liberal with my money (I can be pretty penny-pinching). BUT, here's my point:

I think with regard to money, we all at one time or another fall into one of two camps:

We get frustrated by living within our means. We want to throw off responsibility. We hate having parameters or limitations to our financial capacity. If we want to put it in practical context, I think this is one of the reasons why our economy is in trouble these days. Many of us enjoy the freedom of living beyond our means: enter the dilemma of credit cards. Another unfortunate out-play of our "I want it now; I want it my way" culture.

I don't think this is what God meant when he said, "Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce." (Proverbs 3:9)

Now, lest you think that you're off the hook if you don't overspend, or splurge, let me briefly address the other side. For others of us, we're actually too tight with our money. We hoard. We scrimp. We save. And we rarely share. We're great at living within our means. But we're terrible at generosity. And this is not honoring God with our money either.

So what does it look like to "Honor the Lord with your wealth"?

Let me take a brief stab at that, with some things that I've found helpful in the past few years:

1) Tithe. Just do it. We say that we don't have enough, but then somehow it magically appears when we want to go on a ski weekend or out to dinner, or your daily grand latte. Honor the Lord with your money. If you don't want to tithe to your church, then at least give to a missions organization that you support. Less 6% of households self-titled born-again "Christian" actually tithe (Barna research 2003).

2) Budget. Plan out ahead of time what expenses you have on a month-to-month or week-to-week basis. Put in some "fun" money. And it's OK to not always stick to the plan... but a plan helps set healthy, reasonable parameters, making it easier to be held accountable and to live within your means.

3) Give Generously. I make it a practice to give when I am asked, if I am at all able. Since I started this practice, my giving has nearly doubled, easily. But somehow there has always been enough. And it has forced me to think about how dearly I value money, and how tightly I cling to it. It's also forced me to give up some things that I would love to be able to do for myself, but have re-prioritized. And it has made me value, more than ever, the people who give sacrificially so I can do what I do. I am entirely supported by the generosity of others. I think it's very biblical for the response to generosity to be generosity.

4) Splurge Occasionally. It's okay. Ecclesiastes 5:19 tells us to enjoy what God has given, without guilt. It's okay to buy something you don't need occasionally. Live in the freedom that you have been given. Otherwise it will become a law unto itself and you will still be enslaved to money, not as one form of idol, but the opposite extreme.

5) Be satisfied to live within or below your means. We have this mentality which constantly wants more than what we actually have. When we first graduate from college, we make menial wages, yet we survive. Then we get promoted, and we make more money and somehow things are still tight. And part of this reality is that as we get promoted we get more stuff. We get bigger stuff. And we increase our living expenses and lifestyle. And it ends up being futile and very unsatisfying. Take my word for it: it is far more satisfying to live at or below your means and practice generosity than it is to constantly worry if you have enough to keep up with a lifestyle beyond your capacity. Striving is wearisome.

Okay. I'm going to go cook my french fries now (and enjoy the splurge!). But I'd love to hear your thoughts... :-)