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The past three weeks – maybe four – have been mostly a blur. I’ve been sleeping even less than normal, and been working much more than normal … and yet, there is a strange contentment like I have not recently known.

For quite sometime, financial pressures have been slowly bearing down on us, threatening to completely crush us. Well, at one point early this month, it seemed they would. We were at the end, literally, of every financial rope. We really didn’t know what to do.

So, I decided to try this online package that was only $499.95 that promised I could be making $600,000.00/week in just three short steps! The first week, my check was only $4537.84, but the second week, it tripled to $12,450.32! Now I’m getting checks for over $50,000/week!!! It worked for me, and I can share all my secrets with you in my online resource, “Everything I know about making money online, and why it will work for you!” – at a discounted rate for all GregsHead.net readers – only $399.95!!! So act now!

No. I didn’t do that. But I was tempted to… 🙂

See, what really happened was I just let go. I already knew that stuff is just stuff, and if we even lost all of it, we’d still be OK. Life would go on. It would be different, but it would go on. I had been holding on so tight that when the money didn’t come in, and “God didn’t provide” I would just borrow more money (usually with credit cards) to pay for what we obviously “needed.”

What I have come to learn (really, again) is that God gives us what we need. And if we don’t have what we “need”, then we don’t need it. (Note: I want to say “probably don’t need it” there, but I am really learning that I don’t need the probably!) The key to the whole things is contentment. Content with what we have, and trusting that God will provide our “daily bread.”

And he has.

Seriously, since we decided to just live on what we have – and have not used any credit cards in any way since then, probably four weeks – we have had everything we needed. I have been working many more hours (because I have always had the work, but never had the time to do it… hoping this extra work time is just to dig out of the hole we are currently in!) and so that has helped, but beyond that, there has been the generosity of some friends, as well as funny little moments along the way.

Like this one:

Last Monday, after paying some bills, buying some food… we literally had just a few dollars left. Jen’s parents had just gotten home from a three-week vacation tour, and were coming to see the grandkids and give us a chance to go out for our summer anniversary (the day we decided to get married, July 16). I really, really wanted to take Jen to Red Robin as she has been wanting to do that for a very long time, but the cost was definitely prohibitive! So, with no money, we just weren’t going to be able to do it. Unless… God wanted to give that to us. So, Jen asked him.

Not too long after Jen asked our Dad for enough money to go to Red Robin that night, I got an IM from a friend who I do some web work for… he needed a hosting account, ASAP. 🙂 So, I told him what it would cost, sent him the invoice, and he paid right away (and he paid a ridiculous bonus amount as well!) I told Jen, and she told me excitedly, “I asked God to do that!!“

How awesome is that? 🙂

So, the point is not “don’t use credit cards, just ask God for money for fancy date-night cuisine.” The point is that we have found such contentment living on what we have. We are still in a pretty big financial hole, but God keeps providing, and giving us ideas I think, and we are listening and happily enjoying what God gives us – rather than going ahead of him, as I think we were before, to things he had not yet given us. Even things like food, gas, etc. Now if we don’t have the cash, we don’t get it.

And we have not been wanting. (Which is partially due to God’s provision, and partially due to our contentment. Both working together.)

He really does love us, and take care of us. We know that, and we are getting to see it even closer and more clearly every day now. Honestly, though I don’t like the financial pressure of where we are, and can’t wait to pay off this debt, I hope that we will always be able to see so clearly how God provides – daily – for exactly what we need.

It’s a fantastic place to be!

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
Matt 6:34 (MSG)