At
Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ‘Ask
what I shall give you’. And Solomon said… ‘Give your servant therefore an
understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and
evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?’
It
pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, ‘Because you
have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the
life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what
is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise
and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like
you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches
and honour, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days…"
1 Kings 3:5-14
There is only one way to budget, whether you are as
rich as King Solomon or a homeless person who can fit all your valuables into
your pocket: list all your income, list all your spending (necessary and
desirable) and ensure the latter come out less than the former.
If you are very rich, you may have 'sub-budgets' for
specific areas of your life. If you have two or three homes, you may want to
have a budget for each one; if you have an expensive hobby, like a yacht or sports
cars, you may want to budget separately for it. But the principle remains the
same: include everything in one, overall budget and make sure you spend less
than you get. Even the biggest global corporations produce a single budget once
a year (even if they make a loss and need to make up the difference from their reserves
or savings).
If you do not have a regular income, perhaps because
you are a travelling evangelist who relies on donations from churches, then you
are probably already used to maximising the money you get and not buying what
you cannot afford. If you do this in the quiet confidence that God is meeting
and will continue to provide for you, you may still need to budget to
demonstrate transparency and accountability to the people who support you and
to meet your legal obligation to pay taxes. Therefore, each week budget for the
coming week based on what you have.
If you are rather undisciplined by nature, you may
want to regulate your spending by ring-fencing certain amounts of money in a
network of banking accounts, so that you can be confident of paying direct
debits on time and can see almost immediately when you spend too much cash.
There will be more about this in later Reflections.
If you have a joint bank account and your spouse wants
to retain some privacy over what he or she spends, you must at least share
information about total spending if you want to budget and avoid debt.
It does not matter how many bank accounts, credit
cards or personal loans you have, the principle remains the same: collate all
your income and spending into a single budget.
King Solomon knew that wisdom would be of greater use
to him than wealth; he wrote, ‘By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding
it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and
pleasant riches. (Proverbs 24:3-4). There
have been many famous people in history who have lost inherited wealth through
lack of wisdom.
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Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans
2013.
Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
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