Is your life like a bank vault?

What does that mean, you might ask. Ever hear of the expression, “It’s none of your business”?  Sometimes I feel like people need to make sure everything must be kept secret, “Nobody can know about_______ because it’s none of their business.” But is this the way Christ intended the Body to behave? Are we supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and have the attitude that our lives are our own and everything uncomfortable that happens to us must “stay in the family” because “it’s none of their business”? You might say, “Well I don’t want so and so to know all my dirty laundry and see all the skeletons in my closet, what would they think of me!” Oh really? Then why does the Bible say to confess our sins one to another? How are we to bear one another’s burdens if we have an attitude of “it’s none of your business”?

Let me be the first to say that for me, being raised in a private-like family, it is hard for me to be open and candid about our family struggles. The Lord has been working on me in this area for awhile which all started about 3 weeks ago while talking to a fellow missionary friend. She shared about her family’s commitment to pay off their credit card debt and stop the cycle of adding to the debt. Yesterday as I was helping David edit his article for our weekly update and working on our personal/church finances I went to bed very frustrated and troubled. I stayed up ‘til 2am  last night praying and seeking the Lord and  then the  Holy Spirit hit me with this truth: how can I expect God to bless me and my family if I am unwilling to give Him the opportunity to show Himself strong on our behalf (2Choronicles 16:9)? We want God’s blessings and provisions but we’re unwilling to give Him opportunities to do so then we blame Him for not providing or answering our prayers.

Let me provide an example through a personal experience of ours. I am going to share a testimony that for most is “taboo” to talk about. I want to talk about our personal and ministry finances. We have credit card debt that has been accumulating over the last 8 years. Our second year of marriage David’s employer in the States bounced 4 payroll checks in a row six months before we moved to Puerto Rico. We were able to get the bills repaid after our own checks bounced but we carried with us all the bank fees that were a result of the bounced checks. We tried to do things on our own by working 40 hours a week but the ministry was suffering and we couldn’t pay the bills. David came home one day fed up with trying to do both ministry and work and not getting anywhere with either and told me that he quit his job, I said, “Finally!” That day we prayed and made the commitment to focus solely on ministry and not have an outside job deciding that if God wanted us on the mission field God was going to take care of us while we focus on doing His work, the same day we received a donation and were able to pay many past due bills. 

It wasn’t until 2009-10 that the economy began to slow down and churches were cutting their mission support. We began using credit cards to supplement ministry needs and occasionally we would buy groceries and gas as well. This habit has been building ever since and now we are in a position where we have added too much ministry debt onto our personal credit cards. There is not enough money coming in through the ministry to meet its monthly expenses as well as pay down its debt. Now we find ourselves back where we were 5 years ago.  We have no way to save on a monthly basis after our bills are paid and groceries bought because there is nothing leftover, we can’t afford to buy our daughter school books, I personally have needed an eye exam and new contacts for the last 5 months, any prenatal expense that comes up we have had to use credit and a whole other list of things that we can’t afford to take care of at the moment simply because we lack money. Some have said that we need to go out and get a second job (mission work assumedly being our first “job”), others have suggested food stamps or social security checks to help supplement our income.  

In the article that I was editing for David he shared his testimony about his recent health problem and what God taught him through that experience and he also shared a verse that is so amazing and fitting for what God has shown me that I am going to reshare:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you, the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm, he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121

Every time I or David are faced with a financial dilemma we say, “If God doesn’t provide I guess we’ll just have to put it on the credit card.” Where and when did we allow this false dilemma to dictate how God provides for us on a daily basis? Have we prayed about it? Have we sought other ways to fulfill this need? Do we really “need” to take care of this situation right now or can it wait? When we whip out the credit card to fulfill a need then we have essentially robbed God of Him providing and blessing us. We have “taken care” of it ourselves. We have been given a multitude of Bible verses filled with promises that God will never let us come into harm, that He will take care of us and be our Provider and that we shouldn’t worry about what to eat or drink, but yet here we are brothers and sisters faced with financial hardships every month that temp us to “fall back” on credit.

Five years ago we made the commitment to trust God with our finances.  Recently as a family we realized the need to renew that same commitment by putting away the credit cards and allow the Lord to FULLY be our Provider 110%! What will we do if tomorrow we get in the van and it breaks down? The Lord will provide and care for us. What will we do if we’re out of cash and the cabinets and refrigerator is empty and our daughter and unborn baby need fed? God will not let us starve because His promises are real and always reliable!

You know, we have been to Africa 3 times! Our ministry has been a conduit for providing for others’ needs in amazing ways every month for years now. In addition, God has grown this ministry to nearly 50 international branches. If God can do all these things, surely He can provide for our month to month needs as well as provide a way out of our debt and stop the cycle from continuing!

So, why you ask, have I laid bare our financial situation and how does this relate to the title? I have shared this difficult situation because it is the one thing I have kept hidden in my “vault”, ashamed to allow others to see it, fearful of what others might think. But I know for sure that there are other Christians out there struggling with the same situation and feeling the false dilemma pushing the credit cards into their hands at the grocery store and I have to ask myself, if God want us to confess our hardships and bear one another’s burdens, why am I so willing to hide my own? I need to remember that when I do share the contents of my “vault” it is for the encouragement and edification of others. How can we share burdens if we live out our lives as bank vaults; keeping everything private, locked away from the public and not letting anyone know we have problems? How can I pray for my sister in Christ when she shares an “unspoken prayer request” and how can others pray for me when I do the same? David and I always ask for people to pray for us but how will they know what to pray for if we don’t want to share with them everything that we’re struggling with?

Brothers and sisters let us bear with each other, let us confess our hardships and sins to others and let us be ever ready to be there with the mind of Christ when we’re called upon to share someone else’s burden. Let us allow the Lord to fully take care of our families, don’t allow our wrong and unbiblical thinking lead us into false dilemmas. Whatever situation you are facing right now, God has your provisions and blessings waiting, all we have to do is put the credit cards away, throw away depression/anxiety pills and stop looking in other places for “help” and “answers”.  As I close out this article I would like to share some verses that have encouraged me and the Holy Spirit uses often to remind me of the importance of relying solely on the Lord: 

2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him…”

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path”

His Servant,

Heather Ingram