Is Financial Freedom a Myth?

If you're a single mom, the mention of financial planning may very well send you into panic mode. The thought of balancing your checkbook may lead to involuntary twitching. The idea that you could actually attain financial peace may seem so far out of reach that you can't even consider grasping it as a reality.

Few things in life create the amount of fear and feelings of hopelessness quite like financial bondage. Especially for a single mom.

There's a reason for that, and believe it or not, it's Biblical!

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Proverbs 22:7

I can attest to feeling "ruled over" and to feeling like a slave to the debt that can quickly pile up when living paycheck to paycheck and never quite being able to cover those extra emergency expenses that seem to go hand in hand with having children.

But God doesn't want us to live like that. He doesn't want us to be a slave to anyone. In fact, His Word tells us that it just can't be done. In both Luke 16:13 and Matthew 6:24, His Word says:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

I'd tried countless times to get my finances under control. I tried everything I knew how to do to stay on top of bills and not allow them to pile up. I did everything I could to limit my spending to only the bare necessitites. But nothing ever worked. It always seemed like there were just a few too many days and far too many bills left at the end of each pay period, and I just couldn't get out from underneath it all.

I was trapped. Enslaved. In bondage.

And then I heard Dave Ramsey say: "No one is born a financial planner. I've been to the hospital a lot and the doctor never looks at me and says, 'Oh look there's a financial planner!'"

And it hit me... I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I may be smart, and I may be motivated, but no one has ever really taught me how to do this stuff. Maybe there's a better way... maybe there's a trick, a secret, a magic formula... something that someone else might know that I don't.

Maybe I should ask.

So I joined Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University in my church, and it has rocked my world! There are no magic formulas, but there ARE tricks and truths and a whole lotta God's Word! And learning it has brought me so much freedom!

So over the next few weeks, I'm going to share a bit of my journey with you...

But in the meantime, if you're an Omaha single mom, this Wednesday evening at Westside Church, the topic of the Single & Parenting class that I teach is Money & Career. A good portion of our DVD lesson is done by Dave Ramsey, and all single moms are welcome to attend - regardless of whether you attend Westside or have ever been to a Single & Parenting class before.

We will talk about Dave Ramsey's first 3 "Baby Steps" to financial freedom, which will help get you on the right track to obtaining control over your financial situation. You will not be required to purchase anything - I will have worksheets available for everyone.

Class will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening at Westside Church, and free childcare and Midweek activities will be available for children through 5th grade.

If you would like additional information about this class, the fastest way to get ahold of me is through my facebook link above!

Greatest Love in the Universe

For your Creator will be your husband;
The Lord of Heaven's Armies is His name!
Isaiah 54:5

Original video can be found at www.FathersLoveLetter.com

Stripping Away Me

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? – Mark 8:35-36

I prayed a bold prayer.

I asked God to strip me of me and fill me with Him.

I didn’t realize it would hurt this much.

I’m prideful and independent and stubborn and selfish and I don’t like losing. Especially when what I’m losing is myself. And as I shed the layers of myself, I don’t like seeing the ugliness that my heart is capable of producing.

All at once, a ministry that I have poured my time and my heart into felt like it was collapsing under my feet.

A well-intentioned request for input from a friend felt like a threat to the “safety bubble” I have strategically placed myself within.

All the while, dealing with so many uncertainties in my near and distant future.

Will God provide us with a home, where my kids can have their own space, but which won’t put me in a financial bind?

With my vehicle, my washing machine, and my computer all seemingly near death, will I be slammed with the expenses of having to replace all of them at the same time?

Am I being faithful and obedient, and am I really where God wants me as I begin a new semester in ministry?

Will the Steelers win the Super Bowl?

(Ok, so I guess the answer to that last one isn’t so uncertain… there’s always next season…)

With each unanswered question comes a follow-up question:

Regardless of how the answer plays out, do I trust that God will provide?

He promises He will. But it’s according to the riches of HIS glory – not mine.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19

With my ministry, when things seem to be unraveling, I start to feel responsible. I feel like a failure. I feel inadequate. I feel rejected – both by people and by God. I feel incapable. And sometimes, I feel like giving up.

With my “safety bubble” being pressed upon, I feel the potential for it to pop – leaving me exposed and vulnerable in front of people I don’t know well enough to trust. I feel like my relationships inside the bubble are being threatened. I feel like retreating into a self-imposed solitary confinement as a means of protecting myself from whatever I sense is threatening my security.

In both scenarios, God has something to show me. I continue to look too much toward myself, and not enough toward Him.

I find myself using words like “me”… “my”… “I”… “I”… “I”…

When I should be saying “You”… “Your”… and each of my “I”s  should be followed by a “surrender”.

And He reminds me that He’s not doing anything I haven’t asked Him to do. He’s stripping away the layers of me so that I can clothe myself in layers of Him. And as painful as it is some days to be stripped down and ripped apart, in the end, the glory of His righteousness will shine through my life more brightly than any layer of myself ever could.

And as I allow Him to do His work in me, I hold tightly to the promise and the pronouncement of 1 Peter 5:10-11:

And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To HIM be the power forever and ever.

Chasing Desires in God's Timing

There is a time for everything

and a season for every activity under the heavens

(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Sometimes God plants dreams in our hearts. Desires that He has for us, which, when sought after in the appropriate time, allow us to follow a path He has laid out for us. But sometimes this can be trickier than it might seem.

First, we must be sensitive to the Spirit moving in our hearts. We must be able to discern whether the desires are truly from Him. So how do we know if they’re truly from Him? We must seek Him first and foremost, above all other things. We must spend time with Him. Enjoy Him. When our focus is on Him rather than ourselves, and our intention is to live our life for Him rather than for ourselves, He promises to shape our hearts’ desires.

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

(Psalm 37:4)

The next part, however, has proven even more challenging for me. Not only do we need to be sensitive to God’s Spirit shaping our desires, but we must also be aware of God’s ability to time things just perfectly. Sometimes God puts certain desires on our hearts to prepare us for a time in the future when He intends for us to act on those desires. To begin to move us toward a position where we will be better equipped to act on those desires.

  

The bible is full of testimonies that point to the perfect timing of God. Examples of promises made by God to people who were then asked to wait. Wait and trust. Trust that when the time was right, God would initiate the move.

God has blessed me with a heart full of desires. He’s given me big dreams, big ideas, big plans, big goals… and the personality to want to chase after every single one of them all at once. Even recklessly. And for a long time, I spent a lot of my energy doing just that. And let me tell you, I can be good at it. I’m determined, and I don’t give up easily.

But as I found myself dragging my kids to every ministry opportunity I could get myself signed up for, and then beginning to resent the fact that they made it difficult for me to be so involved, God began showing me something I hadn’t expected.

He really didn’t want me involved in everything.

But He did want my attention.

Because He had blessed me with one of the greatest ministries any person can be given – the ministry of shaping the hearts of my children. And then He reminded me of a sobering reality that, while this may well be one of the most important ministries of my lifetime, it may also be one of the shortest ministry seasons I ever have. My children’s childhood will be over before I know it. They will only be children for a season. Every other ministry opportunity will still be there when my children are grown. But their childhood will be gone.

God has placed many desires on my heart, but I cannot do His kingdom justice by chasing after them outside of His perfect timing. Those things He has placed on my heart for a time in the future, are the very things He is training me for and preparing me for in the present.

And what better training ground than the exhausting, messy, chaotic, disorganized, everyday life of a single mom?

One Word for the New Year

It wasn’t my idea, so rather than trying to paraphrase an idea that someone else has already so impressively articulated, I’ll just let you read it straight from the source for yourself.

http://www.myoneresolution.com/one-word-resolution/

Have you ever made a resolution and actually stuck with it for the entire year?

Is your resolution list for this new year really any different than the one you made last year? Or for that matter, every year previous?

In an effort to live my life more consciously for God… to seek His will… to follow His lead… to walk the path He has already laid out for me… my word for 2013 is intentional. That everything I do be done with a purpose. That all I seek to accomplish this year be for the sole purpose of fulfilling what God has asked me to accomplish.

I’ve always been good at being busy. Being busy for God, even. Teaching classes, taking classes, volunteering, studying God’s Word… but sometimes I do these things just to do them. Sometimes I do them just to stay busy. Sometimes I do them because I’m afraid of missing out on an opportunity to be a part of something God may be doing. But in over-committing myself, I’m never able to fully commit myself. I spread myself thin and don’t allow myself enough margin to fully be a part of what God really does want to do in and through me.

So this year, I want to be intentional. To allow God to use me where He wants to use me. To avoid filling my schedule with stuff He may have already designated for someone else. That there would be less of me in my commitments and more of Him.

What will your word be for 2013?

He Already Knew...

For the Lord is our judge,
The Lord is our lawgiver,
The Lord is our king;
He will save us—
Your tackle hangs slack;
It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly,
Nor spread out the sail.
Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided;
The lame will take the plunder.
-Isaiah 33:22-23

 

As these words were penned, God was already standing with you in today.

 

Really think about that for a moment.

 

As God gave us His Word, He already knew exactly where you would be today - in this very moment. And He gave us these words to guide us, encourage us, and call us to truth - already knowing exactly where we'd be standing today.

 

And as He stands with you today, He is already standing with you tomorrow. What is true in our past and present days of suffering is that God is also currently present in our day of healing. Time is a worldly concept - God is not restricted to the laws of time. He is simultaneously in all places. God had a complete understanding and an absolutely sovereignty of and over your situation today, as His Word was being written for you.

 

While that concept may be next to impossible to comprehend this side of heaven, God will give us the faith to trust in Him and to trust in His truth. We can trust that He holds the answers when we do not. We can trust that He will guide us toward our next step in the journey of our lives, even when He chooses not to show us the entire path at once. We can trust that He has our best interest at heart, that His plan is the only plan that will bring us peace, and that He wants us to follow Him even more than we usually want to ourselves - because He knows the end of the story. He knows where the journey will ultimately lead. And He asks us to trust that He will not lead us down a wrong path.

 

God does not override free will. Even when He doesn't want it for us, He allows others to sin against us. But He also sees what we currently do not, and He is already standing with us on our day of healing. Trust that He wants to get you there; trust that He knows the way.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope... when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you," says the Lord... "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." -Jeremiah 29:11-13; Psalm 32:8

Single & Parenting

It seems like the summer has gone by so quickly – it’s hard to believe that fall is just around the corner!

One of my favorite things about fall is that the church launches all kinds of new groups and bible studies! And I am super excited about a new group I’ll be leading at my church for single moms! If you’re a single mom in the Omaha area, this would be a perfect opportunity for you to get connected with a wonderful group of women, to talk about life, and to get personal with God’s Word. Together.

The group is called “Single & Parenting” and it will begin meeting this Sunday morning! In this group, you will have an opportunity to discuss and apply God’s Word to parenting issues such as discipline, emotions, conflict resolution, financial struggles, and so much more. And you will learn that you are not alone. Whether you are a single parent due to divorce, death, or having never been married, God values you and your family just as much as every other family. And He promises in Philippians 4:19 to “meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.”

I will have an opportunity to present the group it in further detail during our fall Bible Study Kick-Off next week, however, since the group will actually start meeting before then, I’m just trying to get the word out so single moms have an opportunity to get involved right away!

If you’d like more information about the group or if you would like to join, you can email me at smithjosie6@gmail.com or contact Westside Church directly.

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us this season!