The Spender and the Saver

In February of 2010 I was reminded of the debt that I had been forgiven. The magnitude of the Grace of God was overwhelming to me. I neglected to mention one thing about inviting Christ into your life and that is, He COMES. In the form of the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit is that gentle prodding you may feel about a certain situation in your life that God may want to change. It may be big or it maybe little. If you have been a follower of Jesus for awhile you know that our sensitivity to this prodding of the Spirit is sometimes lessened and sometimes heightened in our walk with God. Mine had been dull for quite some time. In February, it was heightened when it came to how I managed the family spending. My wife, Cole, is a saver. She has always been that way. Coming from a household that didn't manage money well and didn't have much of it to manage she learned early on to spend wisely and save every chance you get. I, on the contrary, was raised in a very conservative financial home that was financially secure. My dad who owned a small business, had a quote above his desk that read, "Mind the penny's and the dollars will watch themselves." He taught me how to budget and even warned me often against borrowing money but, I had to go and learn the hard way. Needless to say, I am the spender in my household. To fully make this point, we've been married 9 years and in that time I have owned 7 different cars. Get the picture? My wife, is an amazing testimony to God. She was patient. While on the inside my spending was messing with her perceived security, she never nagged. She patiently prayed for me and waited for God to show up. She up to this point in our marriage had managed our money. She was well aware of how I was waisting it. Did I mention it was my jobs that came and went and hers stayed constant? I know I mentioned that she was in church and I had not been for over a year. Faithfully she followed God as best she could while her husband wandered about aimless and depressed. She lead me by example back to God. Not by nagging or manipulating. In truth, there was a strain on our marriage but Cole rarely mentioned it. I, being a typical guy, barely noticed until God removed it.
The Spirit got my attention when I received a new job. The money was as good as I had ever earned and coupled with Cole's earnings we would make more money in 2010 than in any other year of our marriage. As Cole and I looked at the budget we made a decision. With God's Spirit doing the pushing we determined to be purposeful about the use of this new found income. We set a budget and began to stick to it. In years past when we received a raise we would just spend it where ever. We wanted to be productive with it this time. Having learned over the previous 3 years that jobs can come and go we wanted to make the most of the opportunity while we had it. I did not yet know that God was behind it all. I still thought this was me learning to be responsible and that I was still in control. Cole's prayers were about to be answered and God was about to show up in a major way!