What if we’ve got it all wrong?

I remember sitting in my third grade class and staring at this poster on the wall. It wasn’t the typical poster you would see in a third graders class. It didn’t have a picture of Garfield or Charlie Brown, and it wasn’t an educational poster with some hidden math or grammar lesson mixed in. Maybe that is why I found myself staring at it so often. It was this poster of a cliff side mansion overlooking this vast view of the ocean. The house was partially built into the side of the hill and it had a long curving pathway coming down from the front of the house to an open five car garage/car port complete with a selection of cars that most people only dream of owning including a Porsche and a bright red Lamborghini thrown in just for fun. The poster read “Justification for Higher Education” in big red letters amidst the setting sun in the background. Third grade wasn’t the last time I saw that poster. It showed up again later on in elementary, middle school, and high school as well. I remember staring at those vehicles and thinking, someday I will figure out a way to earn enough money to own a place like that and life will be good. The person who owns that house has his act together.

Here I am now. 30 years old and I haven’t bought that house yet. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for lack of trying. I just haven’t found that next big thing, or at least that is what I have told myself for years.

And yet, I have found myself living in a state of holy discontent for just as many years. I have had this feeling like something crucial was missing that was right in front of me. Something so simple and so key to my walk with Christ was right there with me, but I couldn’t see it.

Don’t get me wrong, I became a Christian many years ago and I have been doing my best to follow Christ and understand his perfect will for my life as best as I can ever since then. This piece that was missing wasn’t a salvation issue, wasn’t a spiritual gifts issue, and for the most part it wasn’t a sin issue. I have spent many days and nights asking God to reveal to me what that piece was because I longed to fill this empty part of me. Every time I would pray that or begin to question what that hole in my spiritual life was my mind was flooded with this single thought. “What if we’ve got it all wrong?”

Not the answer I was looking for. Isn’t it funny how God sometime answers a question with another question? What if we’ve got it all wrong? Over the years I have tried to figure out what that meant and why God would choose to answer me that way. Over the years that feeling of uneasiness has also grown. The best way I know how to describe it is unrest. Incomplete peace.

I found this question bothering me more frequently at our life group meetings. Often times we would find ourselves discussing how Jesus modeled life for us. We would discuss the way he put everything aside for those around him. We would discuss the disciples and apostles and the roads that they walked – the sacrifices they made – the way they laid down their lives for us--literally. We would talk about how Christ calls us to do the same thing. We would talk about how He was changing us from the inside out and forming us in His image. And then, after a snack, we would get in our nice cars and drive home to our new custom built house. Put our kids to bed in their Lightning McQueen and Disney princesses comforters, maybe have a couple chips ahoy cookies and a cool glass of milk before we hop in bed (or better yet bring the whole bag of cookies to bed) ready to watch Jay Leno go Jaywalking before we go to sleep.

There were times in my life when God would show me a glimpse of what he was talking about. There were these moments of, for lack of a better way to describe it, goodness. A point in time when you just knew that where you were at that moment was where you were supposed to be and that thing you were doing was right. That feeling that at that moment you were part of something much bigger than yourself and it was right, but not just right, whole. Looking back in my life, most of my experiences with those moments were when I was serving someone else or doing my best to meet a need for someone else. Just this last week, I had a friend who took up a collection to help out a family in need that had some important items stolen from them. This family had no way to replace what was stolen and needed them so that the husband could continue his education. It was awesome to hear how the family responded when he took what he had collected and dropped it off. Utter shock, surprise, and gratitude – straight from the heart. Likewise, he was blessed in that moment as well. He said that he believed he was blessed more than the family he was trying to help just because he got to play a part in helping to meet that need. What an awesome moment. To me, that is one of those whole moments. I think my friend would agree with me.

God really spelled it out for me recently and this is what has driven me to write this down and start this blog. Like I said before, I have always been looking for that next thing that will help me earn a ton of money, get out of debt, buy a new car, and, oh yeah, maybe help out a few people along the way. But for the most part, I have always looked at the money that comes in and out of my household as mine. With the exception of what I tithe and what I decide to give to others along the way, I have always seen what I earn as God’s provision solely for me and my family. The more I look at Jesus and the apostles, the more I see that is not exactly what God had in mind.

To fill you in completely you need a little background. My wife and I have owned a Ford minivan for almost 4 years now. We bought it used for about $8k, and thought that it would just be a temporary car until we could afford to buy a new one (one reason to not take care of it). We bought this before we had our third child and since then we have had both our third and fourth. Since purchasing the van it has had about every creature comfort break on it. From the electric windows that won’t go down, to the cabin lights that come on whenever they feel like it (another 2 reasons), it has slowly fallen apart. Add a rusting roof, chipping paint and worse gas mileage than a really old Suburban to the list as well. Only after buying this van did we discover that Consumer Reports rated it as one of the lowest rated mini-vans on the market for its year of manufacture (yet another reason to despise it). We have talked about buying a new car for all 4 of the years that we have owned this vehicle, but have not had a peace about it until recently. You see we are one of those families that lives from paycheck to paycheck. We are trying to dig ourselves out of a small mountain of debt that we have accumulated partially because of a job change and partially because we were living beyond our means. Just recently we were able to pay down a big chunk of that debt because we received a large tax refund. Jess and I had been praying (going on 4 years now) that God would help us to free up enough money to buy a new car, because, after all that Ford minivan could die at any minute. Only, it has been 4 years now and that darn thing won’t die. Hmm…maybe God was trying to tell us something.

So after 4 years of praying and finally paying down a chunk of debt I finally get this peace from God that it would not be wrong to buy a new car now. Jessica and I immediately went out to test drive vehicles. We drove expeditions, Honda pilots, we looked at the Jeep Commander, and finally settled on this Mazda CX-9. It was the perfect size. It fit all 6 of us and still left room for an ice chest in the back. It also didn’t drive like a brick. It was awesome. It was $26,500 for the 07 model. Only 2 left, so we had to make a decision fast. We went home to talk about it just a little more and that’s when God spoke to me clearly. We wrote down our budget on paper. What was coming in and what was going out. We didn’t include the quarterly bonus I got from my job and we tried to include some cash in our budget for unexpected things. What do you know -. it worked out on paper. But barely. Not much wiggle room. Not much room for the unexpected. Hmm…

So there we were sitting in our room staring at eachother. When God starts to pull on my heart strings. “You can go get this car,” he said, “and that would be okay. I just want to make sure…is that what you really want?” Arrrgghh! Another one of those “what if we’ve got it all wrong” moments! What do I really want? So as we sat there and stared at each other I grabbed our little pad that we had written our finances out on and asked Jessica, “What do you want to do over the next 5 years?” knowing that was how long we would have to pay for the car. And that was when the glimpse into what I think God was trying to teach me became a realization. We wrote down how we wanted to put our kids in private school. We wrote down that we wanted to adopt. We wrote down how we wanted to work on our backyard to make it a place where we can share our house and our lives and our faith with other young families around us. We wrote down that we wanted to be able to bless other people freely without having to make sure we had the money in the bank. We wrote down that we wanted to be able to give more.

And suddenly the new car didn’t matter anymore. There was the realization that these things that God has planned for us (if we are willing) are going to take planning and money and intentional living. If we bought the car, sure we could make the payments, but there would be no way that we could put our kids in private school. It would be very difficult to adopt when we are ready. We would still be living paycheck to paycheck. Did I mention that it would take much longer to pay off the debt that we had accumulated? There has to be a trade off (a sacrifice if you will). There has to be a decision as to what is important in this life and what that higher education was for. What it comes down to for me in really simple terms is this. Did God bless me and give me my unique set of gifts and talents just to see how much money I could make for me and my family?

Did God make me for me?

What if God didn’t just make me for me?

What if everything that this culture has been cramming down my throat since the third grade wasn’t part of God’s plan for me?

What if the justification for higher education wasn’t a Lamborghini? What if it was adopting a child who needed a family?

What if the money that I spent on my cable TV to watch Jay Leno (and gain 10 pounds in the process) should have been saved to pay for my childrens’ education?

What if all the creature comforts that I spend thousands of dollars on each year are replacing the chance to bless the widow at church who needs my help?

What if God created me to do something bigger than make car payments for the next 5 years?

What if we really do have it all wrong?

Once again, please don’t get me wrong. I am not swearing off cable TV or Whataburger or even buying a new car. I am just saying that our culture has led us to believe that what we have is not good enough. We are taught from birth that this life is about what you can make out of yourself and what we mean when we say that is how much wealth you can accumulate. We need more. We need comfort. We need constant entertainment. We need the latest and the greatest. It is normal.

We deserve it.

Truth be told, in this country, most people live like kings compared to the rest of the world and compared to pretty much the rest of history. We have it all and somehow we still want more. In all of that it is so easy to miss God’s provision.

My Ford minivan. God’s provision.

God’s perfect provision.

So here is what I want you to take from this. I used to believe that if God wanted us to do something he would provide the means (above and beyond what he has already provided) and I think a lot of people would agree with me on that. Now I believe that God is showing me that for most of the things he wants me to do, he has already provided the means. I just have to make the decision that that is what I am going to do with what he has given me. But he has left that decision up to me.

So as I start this blog, I have to be completely honest and say that I don’t have a clue what God wants me to do with my finances yet. I do know that he wants me to pay off debt as quickly as possible and be freed up so that they will be available for whatever comes next.

I am hoping that through Financial Peace University Jessica and I can get a jumpstart on catching up.

Over the next 13 weeks I am going to do my best to chronicle our financial situation as we go through this course, and I also want to share what God is doing in our lives as he gives us those small glimpses into his bigger picture and reveals to us that next step as it comes in His time.

So I ask you, what if we really do have it all wrong?