The Emergency Fund

We all have an "emergency fund" - a safety net in the event that we fall sick or have an accident or need to fix a leaky roof etc. The emergency fund is not only a bank account - it could comprise of family members and friends who provide emotional support, a good job, a country with a good economy, a university education and more.  If you're honest with yourself, your stress levels are way lower when you have something to lean on in the case of an emergency. It's common sense. You feel that if something were to happen to you, then you'd at least have the money to take care of yourself, people to help take care of you etc. An emergency fund is a good thing - a great thing really, but it becomes a problem when we trust the emergency fund more that we trust God.


What do I mean by that?

You see, I've been noticing some thing about myself, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one. As a chronic worrier (yes, I know, that needs to change), when I have nothing or no one to fall back on, I go into panic mode. My human nature needs something that I can see to make me feel safe. However, as a child of God, my hope, trust and confidence should be in God, not what I can see. In other words, my automatic reaction should be faith (Hebrews 11:1) and not panic.

So here's where the emergency fund gets us in trouble. Whilst it is an excellent thing to have (and we should all be working on one), when we have it, we tend to lose sight of the fact that God is our provider - He's our source and everything comes from him. We lose sight of the fact that we don't provide for ourselves, God does. Our faith level drops a little bit because we feel that if something happens we'll be fine. We don't remember that it is God who gave the emergency fund in the first place and He loses a little bit of his significance in our lives. That is why, when our emergency fund is depleted, we go into panic mode.

I believe that faith is like a muscle. It must be exercised or it will deteriorate. If we don't learn to have faith even in the good times, when times become desperate it is going to be difficult to wrap our heads around that fact that God can and WILL take care of us.

So what's the message of today's post? As children of a living God, we must remember to put our faith not in the material things that we have, or the persons that we may have around us, or the jobs that we currently hold or the current state of the economy of the country that we live in. Our faith should ALWAYS be in God. He has given us wisdom and has taught us to save for the future, to educate ourselves, to work diligently at whatever job we have and invest in the future. However, let us not let that "emergency fund" distract us from have total faith in our ultimate source.

Be blessed and have a great day.

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Test? Or Testimony?

This week has been a rather challenging one for me and staying positive is sapping all my energy. My house was broken into three days ago and thieves cleared me out. They took the one tool I own which is most important to me, my laptop. From it, I learn, create, produce and play. They also took my two back up hard drives, so I'm left with nothing. I've lost complete manuscripts (unpublished) and other works in progress. I've lost so much more, it's hard to even think about it. It's safe to say that I'm a bit depressed.

So what does a Christian do at times like these. It's easy to just want to crawl into the fetal position and yell at God "how could you let this happen to me." It's also easy on day one to stand firm and believe that your all powerful God will help you recover all. It even seemed like He already started working, the police got an incredible lead and they know exactly who violated my home. So you think they'd go get my stuff right away right? Nope, they didn't. So day two rolls around and whilst I still have faith, it's starting to drop to only about 90%. Wait...what? Yup, I am, I'm slowly losing faith.

This is the part where I would usually say you gotta keep focused and trust God but today, on day three, it feels like my faith is now at about 80%. See, I'm learning something about myself, and maybe about people on a whole. It's extremely easy to have faith on day one. God gets our complete trust. His word is all that matters to us. Then, the days wear on and we see no progress and we begin to wonder if God is even bothering with us. It's human nature, but, it's also a weakness in us that the devil exploits. He knows that I'll never believe that my God can't do something, so his lie is this "your God can, but WILL he?! He doesn't care about your stupid laptop!"  That's a lie that's easier believed.

I've noticed something else. God is challenging me with something else. Earlier this year, I posted something about being more militant about the Christian walk, I've stepped up,  but truly not as much as I should have. This situation is forcing me to mean what I say. So, the war is on, for my faith and for my stuff and for my life. I view this attack as personal, when I put out my last book, Trusting God with your Future, I realized that God is pushing me to write more in that direction and less fiction. So the devil wants to take my voice. It's not happening. So now, I'm going to lift my voice and tell him so.

I'm pretty sure there's a situation in your life that you can apply this to.

Be Blessed.

Joana James - Author of From Redemption to Maturity, Trusting God with your Future,   Nightmare at Emerald High & Alana and Alyssa's Secret & Finding Romeo