Traveling the Financial Pilgrimage: Healing Our Image of God and Money

seank.mitchell@yahoo.com

The statistics are staggering. The number of lives and marriages being crippled by money issues has become an epidemic. Jesus saw it coming, as that explains why He must have spent so much of his storytelling and mentoring talking about finances and their relevance to the spiritual condition. He knew that money, or the lack of it, had the easy ability to keep our attention off of our relationship with God and throw everything off center. And He was right.

When Jesus talked, he was trying to heal those listening—trying to heal their image of God. Jesus knew that if He could ever help people learn the art of "trusting God" then everything else would fall into its rightful place. In his revolutionizing Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged the audience to transform their way of life. He told them to stop worrying about such concerns as from where their next meal was going to come, or with what they were going to clothe themselves. The new way to live was to become children of God and to live for the beauty, mystery, hope, trust and provision that went with it.

Quite a few today are struggling with this way of life because they have either forgotten or have never heard God’s call to a trusting relationship with Himself. Beyond Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Scripture is full of reminders of God’s eminent, unfailing, providing love. Yet, at the first sign of financial uncertainty, the pattern is to start worrying and searching for solutions. Solutions are fine, but before we get advice from a financial workbook, a deeper journey may need to happen.

The journey is comprised of prayer and a heart that cries out something similar but not necessarily altogether like this:

I know, it does sound a bit packaged, but our prayer streams do take us away to a consciousness of God. Prayer is necessary, because it not only has the power to change circumstances, but also to change and heal us. Likewise, healing is necessary, because if we never learn to trust God, then a relationship with Him will never be what it could be. You can’t fully know someone that you don’t trust or expect to experience the full beauty of their being.

A few years back, I was deeply in love, yet unemployed. I wanted to propose to my girlfriend, but I didn’t feel it was the way of conventional wisdom for a jobless man to pop the question. However, deep down, I heard God saying that this was His path for me. So, after bouts with fear and hesitation, eventually I grabbed hold of trust and pursued marriage. I still tremble a bit when I look back on that time. However, I am glad I took the path that God showed me. From that season in my life, I learned as much about money and Christian discipleship as I ever have. I learned that trustingly following God supersedes all else, even if such trust seems to break the rules of financial, conventional wisdom.

God is here today, in the moment, whether it be a time of financial certainty or uncertainty. For the employed and unemployed, those in debt and debt free—He is here. He is here calling you and me to be His children and to accept the fact that tomorrow may never come and worry is powerless and wasteful. We are to embrace His providing love and believe that He is placing a path before our feet and will complete the work that He has begun in us. On this provisional path of God, we are not promised to be void of tough times ever again, but we are healed. Our image of money is healed as we learn to view God as our ultimate provider rather than the economic tide or our streams of income. As Jesus implied, there is a new way for all of us to live.

Questions for Pilgrimage:

1) Why is healing important to the financial pilgrimage?

2) In the area of finances, how is God personally inviting you to trust Him?

Copyright Sean K.Mitchell

Sean K. Mitchell is a capital campaign consultant and a creative writer. He is also the author of The Financial Pilgrimage, a book that helps Christians embrace a fresh approach to financial decisions and Christian living. For more information on the book or more of Sean’s writings, visit www.seankmitchell.com.