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Finding the Way Home
The eNewsletter Archive
Below is the archived version of Marshall Hayden's eNewesletter "Finding the Way Home." If you would like to be added to to mailing list, please send a blank email to evangelism-subscribe@worthingtoncc.org.
You may also view our archived articles here.
June 2009
When I was young my parents began to teach me about money management. It wasn't that tough. We didn't have a lot. I didn't earn a lot. We really didn't need a lot. It was a good beginning. But, starting with a little Saturday job at a corner grocery when I was twelve, to two paper routes in my early teens, I learned to set aside God's part and the savings part before doing what I wanted with the rest. By grocery store stocking job time through high school and mattress factory summer work in the early college years that simple scheme was rather well planted in my mind.
I'm happy to say that God always got His part. Using weekly envelopes helped keep me on track; but I'm pleased to remember that I never really considered doing anything else with that 10%. The savings envelope, though, used to get invaded now and then. As the money piled up in that (at least it seemed like a lot to me), something that I wanted to get or wanted to do required just a little bit more than I had in my pocket. So "just this once" I'm going to take a dollar or three from there. "I'll put it back next week." But there was at least one season when nothing was put back, and another "just this once" came along, and another, until the envelope was empty. And it's hard to recover from a series of "just this onces."
Hopefully I learned a lesson about life, which I hope you have learned too. And it relates to things much more important that a savings envelope. "Just this once" can take me a long ways away from my target, my commitments, my safety, and my joy. Addicted people know that. One drink can lead an alcoholic or a budding alcoholic to deep trouble. One bet can lead to bankruptcy. One more visit to "that internet site" can wreck havoc on my spirit and my precious relationships. Even one more hour (or two) invested in video games, or serial texting, or something else that seems innocent and simply frivolous, can move me an uncomfortable distance from people who matter to me and from responsibilities that I have accepted.
Actually, one more Sunday when I go off to play rather than joining the family of faith in worship and meaningful fellowship can make it very easy to add another, and another; and I end up an uncomfortable distance away from the joy and strength that I really want, that will be good fellowship with a lot of other people, and that the Lord of heaven deserves. It is even possible to end up with an empty envelope.
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