Today is a great day for a Dunkin Donuts coffee and I got mine with a gift card. I love gift cards because it feels like free cash…which is a little of an oxymoron. Because money is never free, it can easily own us, it can control us, we can never control it. Sure we manage it, we spend it, save it and give it but we depend on it so badly. It’s what’s been shaping a lot of attitudes of late. The only way we can prevent money from controlling us is by allowing God to take control of it.
I’m a big component of tithing, one because I work in a church but more so because it’s the first step from freeing yourself of money worries. But it’s not just the act of giving, you have to do it first, because if you are just giving God the leftovers, it means you are still a slave to the Almighty Dollar. I hate the way the love of money controls me and others, and how it causes so many arguments between me and those that I love.
Yesterday I had lunch with a friend at Panera and as we were leaving a woman outside was asking for change, neither of us had change, but what was great is my friend came up with the idea to buy the woman lunch, so he went back inside and got her a bagel and cream cheese with a drink. I loved the idea, but I have to confess the first thing in my mind was, “How much is this going to cost me?” That’s stupid…I put money first and not this woman and definitely not God. Money can do a lot of fun stuff, but in the end it can’t give me what God can…money isn’t free, and to free ourselves from money we need to let God take control and come first.