it's all God's money anyway

i want to talk about the several times we've saved for things, thinking "now, this is the greatest plan, we'll use this money for this great idea and it'll be so wonderful, won't God be pleased and we'll go the way of cash and won't that just burn the hides of our visas, too many plastics in our pockets to count?"

case in point:  years back, we saved and squirreled away money for a trip to DC with our kids. we made a mental list of "to do's" with our kids before they were grown. DC was on that list. we were ready to go, had our plans to drive and see all points from here to there. we were so excited!

and then the plumber said "uh, m'am, we're gonna have to replace that plumbing of yours from the house to the street. yeah, it's got what we call orangeburg plumbing in there and it always has to be replaced at some point. now's the time."  there went the DC trip literally down the drain! we kidded about that for a long time tho it wasn't very funny. we talked about how nice it was to have cashola to pay for such a big plumbing project and wasn't God good to provide cash for that? and since we know God is sweetly sovereign, we also could say, "ok God, it's all Your money anyway, if THIS is what You want to spend Your money on, then so be it.  we'll go to DC another time."

one more example and then i'll let you ponder your own stories like this because i'm sure you've got'em. for five years my husband and i saved for our 25th anniversary trip to somewhere. the only way we coulda done it was to have the money taken out of his paycheck, week after week between our 20th and our 25th anniversaries. well, come the year of our 24th year of marriage and up come another need. we were thinking:  aren't we glad God knew ahead of the fact that we'd need this - not for our 25th anniversary trip - but for this particular need? and then this year, the year of our 25th, once again, another need arose that only He could have known about. isn't God good? but isn't it all how you look at it, from a human perspective i mean? resentment or appreciation? sometimes it takes me a while to get from the one to the other.

it's all God's money anyway.  by faith, we went this summer and got our passports!!! we're going somewhere, sometime together and we may yet make it to DC with our kids, too. we're praying we'll pay cash for both these trips but only God knows the when, where and how of it. we're not worried - it gets frustrating at times, fo sho. but He is such a good and faithful God, we'll trust Him, keep saving and see where He wants the money to be spent.