Currently viewing the category:
"Uncategorized"
Today, I tried something new with my kids. We had some play money sitting around that I had bought a couple months ago, and hadn’t played with yet. So… I thought I’d give them their first lesson in money management.
We opened the packages and laid all the money out in the middle of the floor separated by denomination.
Next, I got out a big box of candy that Grammy had sent us for Valentine’s Day. I explained to them that they were going to be buyers, and I was going to be a seller. I gave them each $100 in play money, and told them that I was going to randomly pull a piece of candy from the box. I would then go around our circle and ask for a bid from each buyer.
I explained to them that as buyers, they should try to offer me as little money as possible to purchase my candy. On the other hand, as the seller, my goal was to get the highest bid for my candy. They were not required to place a bid for the candy that was being offered. They could wait and save their money for a better piece that may come along.
With these things in mind, we began our lesson.
The first piece of candy I pulled out was a gummy candy. My first bidder was my oldest, Arwen, who’s 5 years old. She immediately offered me her entire alotted amount of $100. Me being the opportunist that I am, I accepted her offer.
Moving along, I pulled out the next piece of candy that was up for bidding, a large gumdrop. Since Arwen was already out of money, I skipped to Charis for her bid. She initially offered me $50, but quickly changed her mind and offered me $100! Again, I couldn’t beat that deal, so I sold her the gumdrop for $100.
Next, I pulled out another gumdrop. I informed my oldest two children that they were out of money, to which Arwen said, “Well we could just get some more.” If only it were that easy…
Ezra, my 2 year old, was all that was left. I asked him what he would bid. He picked up one of his $20 bills and handed it to me saying, “Ehh…”? I accepted his bid, and moved to the next piece of candy.
Being the only one who could bid, I offered the candy to Ezra and asked him how much he would give me for it. He handed me another $20 bill, and I accepted. He now had two pieces of candy, whereas his sisters only had one each, and he still had $60 left!
This time I pulled some chocolate from the box! 
Again, Ezra was the only one who had money to bid. It now started to dawn on the girls that money is something you have to take care of. They had blown theirs immediately, and here was their little brother, already with two pieces of candy, and about to get a third!
Ezra was the man. He was rolling around on the floor as if he had an imaginary bed of money to lay on, enjoying the candy he had gotten at such a good deal!
The girls were really starting to get it now. They weren’t getting anymore candy.
I stopped our experiment for a moment, and asked my girls why Ezra had ended up with more candy than they did. They both quickly answered that Ezra had more money than they did!
Oh, the answer of the covetous heart!
I explained that they had all started off with the same amount of money, but that they were so quick to grab the first piece of candy to come along, they were willing to give away all of their money for it. If they had managed their money better, they could have had a lot more candy.
Well, I tried the experiment one more time with better results, but in the meantime, they’re not getting anywhere near my checkbook!
I’ve been reading through the story of Jonah today with my kids. Before bed, we finished the part where Ninevah repents, and Jonah has a hissy fit because God won’t destroy the people that he dislikes. By the way, how come the atheists never bring up this story when trying to discredit God?
Anyway, Jonah says to God in Jonah 4:1-3:
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (ESV)
Jonah was having an adult size temper tantrum. He was upset because God was not bowing to his whim, and he was so upset that he was ready to die. Ever been that upset before?
God’s kindness was illogical to Jonah. Why would God not punish such a wicked people? Certainly there was precedent for it. God had called the Israelites to destroy many other heathen peoples. Why let the Ninevites survive?
God’s kindness is naturally illogical to all of us. It’s naturally illogical to atheists who believe that a loving God would ONLY do kind things for ALL people. A loving God, in there mind, should be one that is completely kind ALL of the time and to EVERYONE. But this is not a god, but a slave. A slave is expected to care for their masters, and to do it with a good attitude.
So, God decides to make a point to Jonah.
4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (ESV)
God makes His point here by an act that seems to us unkind. He causes a plant to grow and provide shade over Jonah, only to cause it to die the next day, with the result that Jonah was asking God to let him die! Yes, God caused this chain of events!
What kind of a loving God does this?
God says that we have one-dimensional perspectives about a world in which we have not labored or caused to grow. On top of this, we are here today and gone tomorrow.
God’s kindness cannot be defined by Wikipedia. It cannot be completely understood by our puny human minds.
No tragedy in life is worthy to be met by criticism on our part to a holy and sovereign God.
God is reminding Jonah here, of the two things that make Him God. He’s sovereign, and He lives forever, while we are temporary and have control over nothing.
Because of this, we cannot understand the logic of God’s kindness.
I’ve spent countless hours trying to create the perfect Excel spreadsheet to try to help me do something as simple as track my monthly expenses and figure out where my money is going.
I don’t like checkbook balancing. I like automated. I paid for a Quicken program a couple of years ago on our old PC, but due to the unreliability of the computer, and that I generally hate working with PC’s, I stopped using it.
Well bless my soul, I was referred to a website that would do everything this software would do. It’s also online so that I can access it from anywhere. The website’s security is topnotch. Interestingly, the site is done by Quicken.
mint.com
It’s www.mint.com. It automatically downloads bank statements, loan statements, savings accounts, you name it, it’ll download it. It has a budget tool, and helps keep you in line with where your budget is.
So how does it do this for FREE? I was curious too, and I was correct when I found the offers for credit cards, and other accounts that you could sign up for by using the links embedded within the software.
If you can’t ignore a credit card offer, then DON’T use this software.
I suggest using it for free, and sticking it to the man.
Our Family Soap Biz
