Date: 3/15/2010
Author: Devin
Title: When is enough, enough?
March 17, 2010
Dennis Talbert lives in Michigan and heads up a nonprofit organization that on a daily basis helps churches and
neighborhood groups counsel people whose financial problems have them in danger of losing their homes. Dennis
Talbert has a big, big challenge on his hands. As I was reading about Talbert and his Michigan Neighborhood Partnership
in the Detroit Free Press recently, I found his approach to be both refreshing and practical. He doesn’t blame the
economy. He doesn’t blame the government. He doesn’t let people off the hook for personal responsibility. “We live a
lifestyle we can’t afford,” he says. “I think that’s the No. 1 issue.”
Incredible! One of us could be the root of his own problem? We should live within our means? We should tune out
those ridiculous TV ads that keep telling us to spend money we don’t have? We should draw up spending plans and actually
live by them? I told you he had some novel ideas.
Talbert doesn’t deny there are real problems out there. He isn’t unfeeling enough to say that there are no legitimate
victims of a company’s collapse or health problems that made it impossible for some to work. But he makes the same
point Dave Ramsey makes, the same point common sense screams, the same point that is stressed in the Bible: Human
beings become our own worst enemies when we naively think we can be irresponsible with money and suffer no
consequences. Life is the ultimate “reality show” that says otherwise. When he launches his attack on fiscal folly,
Talbert tells about a young woman he knows who has a “modest job” in Detroit – but who lives in upscale West
Bloomfield and drives a Mercedes. “Every dime she has goes to her lifestyle. We live in a culture that tells people spend,
spend, spend.”
Money isn’t evil, and you don’t need to feel guilty if you have some. “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of
evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy
6:10) A roof over your head, clothes for the kids, and a car that gets you safely from Point A to Point B are good things.
The Biblical counsel about money isn’t that you should avoid it or give it all away. It is, instead, that (a) you shouldn’t
build your sense of identity around wealth or the lack of it, (b) you mustn’t let the desire for money and things become
the driving force of your life, and (c) you need to learn to share what you have with the people around you. It’s really
pretty simple.
As a friend of mine likes to say: It’s when your outgo exceeds your income that your upkeep becomes your downfall.
The trouble comes when expensive short-term ego props are put in the place of long-term values that are free for the
cultivation – love and loyalty, patience and peace, gentleness and goodness ..... now that’s a lifestyle you can afford, and
it doesn’t cost you a dime. (Copied)
When is enough, enough? I bet most of us have ask that question to the person in the mirror on more than one
occasion. How many times have we thought that if we just had a little bit more money, or maybe a little bigger car, or
maybe a little nicer house, that life would just be perfect. Of the many things that the Bible is clear on, contentment is
at the top of the list. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:6, “But godliness with contentment is great gain”. Notice,
he did not say that it was just good enough to be content. Paul said that contentment coupled with godliness was great
gain. Anything in life that is not tethered to God will at best be gain for only a short time. How many people have had
some type of financial windfall thinking that life would be made complete only to find that many times it brought about
even more difficulty, stress, and anxiety. Sometimes more money is not the answer to the problem ..... it is the problem.
An old proverb says, “If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money cannot buy.” How much
better would life be if we could all think in those terms? Maybe we should begin thinking that way ..... I think God does.
Go the extra mile - Devin