New Priorities (part two)

When I get serious with God, He inevitably challenges me in two areas - how I spend my time and how I spend my money. Yesterday I touched on time. Today, money.

Money
Each Sunday morning, my husband sits down at the kitchen table with a cheque book and asks God how much we should give. He then writes a cheque for that amount. Yesterday, we spent the morning bickering about money. He's a spender and I'm a saver. After only a year of marriage, we are still working out the kinks of sharing our finances with each other. At the end of the (marathon) argument, two things were agreed on. First, I would set up a rough budget for us (gulp!). Second, we will begin to treat purchases the same way we treat giving. What this means is that instead of just blindly buying whatever we feel like buying (whether that be a $1500 mountain bike or a $5 bottle of nail polish or extra goodies at the grocery store), we will endeavour to pause and ask God how much we should spend. If we allow the Holy Spirit to lead our giving, should we not also allow Him to guide our spending? I'm curious to see what the outcome will be, however I am a bit nervous. I like to buy cute clothes for my daughter and extra goodies at the grocery store and a Starbucks latte here and there. If I stop and ask God if it is OK to buy something, He might very well say "no" and then I have to chose whether to obey or not. Of course, He might also say "yes" and then I can truly enjoy my latte.