Hope in Times of Inflation
Dear friends, you are looking at a brand new certified Dave Ramsey Coach! Confetti, please. My favorite hobby is being in school, if you want to stop for a moment and have sympathy for my poor husband. In our bathroom is a little stand holding a stack of sign language flashcards my mom gave me in my Christmas stocking. I am about 350 cards through the 500 that were in the box. If you want to know how to sign “cow,” I can proudly show you how to do this. My brain is hungry, and I am always reaching for something new to learn.
With the precious encouragement of my husband, I signed up to become a Dave Ramsey Coach, and I have never been happier than sitting, watching online classes, taking notes and being a happy, nerdy little student. My hope is to make this financial coaching a valuable part of my Life Building business.
All that to say, I have been thinking so much about financial planning and budgeting lately. Matt says that it was worth it for me to take the coaching class, just for the knowledge benefit in managing our own finances. It certainly has forced me to stand back and look at our own money habits and organization.
Meanwhile, I was opening the Bible and found a chapter that is my new fave. I’m a little giddy about how it connects to budgeting, so I’m turning to you to share, because my husband just can’t take another, “Guess what I learned!” If you’ll kindly take the brunt of my enthusiasm, he will be oh so grateful.
Dave Ramsey has tried and true principles. He lays out seven steps to follow as a financial plan, and I can testify that they are extremely beneficial. He also teaches about budgeting, and again I agree that meticulous budgeting is a skill that leads to financial peace. But the best thing I learned about financial coaching is that it’s an opportunity for creative thinking around money. How do plans and budgets and creativity go together?
Then I went to church to lead a women’s Bible study and prayer time, and we sat together meditating on the words of Proverbs 8. Proverbs 8! I’ve read through Proverbs multiple times in my life, but the Spirit brought this chapter to life for me. It is a chapter where wisdom is talking about herself as being at the side of the LORD before everything was created and as things were created. Listen to Proverbs 8:30-31:
Then I was beside him, like a master workman.
I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
Rejoicing in his inhabited world,
And delighting in the children of man.
The artist in me came to life when I read this passage. Wisdom was with the LORD as an architect of all that was being created, and she participated in creation with the delight that an artist feels when he dips brush to ink or chisel to stone or pencil to paper or fingers to ivories.
Delight. Delight.
Rejoicing. Rejoicing.
My sisters in Christ, the Master Craftsman, the Chief Architect of all creation is now residing in us. She is alongside us as we do anything and everything.
Consider this in relation to financial management: As with any art, there is a framework of discipline to be followed. In music there are time signatures. In painting there is the color wheel. In pottery there is the physics of clay on wheel. There is always the framework, but alongside it is the creativity and one-of-a-kind perspective of the artist. One hundred painters can follow the disciplines of colors and lines and shadows, but every painting will look different, and we begin to see the unique signatures of each artist.
Imagine sitting down with your budget with wisdom at your side, as she was at the side of the LORD when he spoke the world into existence and formed man out of the dust. Imagine using the wise frameworks she has gifted to us through people like Dave Ramsey but then also the creative architectural design she can bring to your unique budget. Will any two budgets look alike? I think not. Won’t wisdom dip her brush into our unique personalities and spiritual giftings and life experiences and passions, to create a budget that just fits the good works she has gone ahead and designed for us to do?
If you are discouraged by inflation and the daily grind of trying to make ends meet, as prices go up but salaries don’t, I encourage you to sit down and look at your budget in a new light. Use your imagination and picture the Master Craftsman alongside you, the one who can take the formless and void and with one word turn it into blue skies and ocean waves and hummingbirds. She is with you. The numbers and the budget categories are the form, but oh how wisdom wants to delight and rejoice in helping you create something beautiful and good within that framework. I’m quite sure that she has ideas you’ve never thought of before, and wisdom delights in YOU. What hope we have when we look at our finances, because we are not alone. We are never alone in it.
Delight. Delight.
Rejoicing. Rejoicing.
With love,
Christy
If you could use some practical help talking through your own financial framework, reach out to me. I would find great joy in being your financial coach. I’m especially passionate about helping young people develop good money mindsets and habits, so if you have a young adult grandchild or know a couple getting married, you could give them a gift certificate for coaching with me. I can coach by Zoom meetings or over the phone, if they live far away. Give the gift of wisdom and hope.