Money, part x.ii of X

So I've been thinking a lot about money. My budget class had it's first "real" meeting this week (last week's meeting was mostly introductory). There's a lot that's been on my heart, but here's one that's really been on my mind: Why is it so hard to be content with less?

Why does my heart gravitate toward the new and expensive so easily? I want a new desk chair. My current one doesn't give me any problems - it just isn't new or shiny or spiffy. If I didn't know that I could buy a nice new chair for $80, I wouldn't consider grumbling about my current chair. But just knowing that there is "better" out there makes me start contemplating the purchase.

Can I really tell the difference between old and new entertainment? I recently invested $40 in a couple copies of Starcraft. Partly to satisfy my conscience about actually owning software I use - and partly so I can teach my significant other a bit about real time strategy games. Yes, the graphics are a bit dated. Yes, Starcraft II will probably be prettier. But you know, I don't sit there during the game going "Ug, this is so ugly." In fact, I mentally imagine a universe which is far more detailed than the actual graphics. It's only when I see the new and better (Starcraft II demos) that I realize how much has changed.

This week's memory verse is "Just as the rich rule over the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender." I've been realizing that while I often hear a lot about helping the poor (which is great), I don't hear people talk about eliminating Visa and Mastercard. Why not? Partly, I think, it's because we don't tend to believe that debt indentures us to service. (And yes, it's possible for us to get trapped even if we're not poor.)

Here's another principle I've been wrestling with: "Do not say 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money'". So often, credit assumes on the profitability of tomorrow - but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Money, Part x of X?

So I started taking a budgeting class, which may the first of many posts. Two thoughts caught my attention.

First, the study has very case studies of people and their financial situations after they've found themselves in difficulty. It's really tragic to see how financial decisions slowly accumulate until they are a crushing load.

Secondly, the study mentioned the verse

And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

and I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Mostly I've been thinking about in the context of work and what it means to be trustworthy with asking for equipment, new software, new LCD screens, and the like. The full passage context is here.

Post, Post!

So my friend who complained a couple weeks ago that I don't post weekly seems to have had a very valid point. Unfortunately, I don't have much interesting to say at this point. Or maybe more to the point, little of it seems to blog very well. If people are suitable bored, they are welcome to create their own blog for me with it's own fictional posts.

Anyway, one quick thought: I've been reading through Ezekiel (yes, one of the major prophets that despite being major, nobody seems to know aside from prophetic utterances about Gog and the end of the world). So far, the first thirty chapters have nothing to do with the end of the world (sorry to disappoint people), but it's striking how often God says "I will do X, and then you will know that I am God." X ranges from "wipe you out and destroy you" to "return you to the land and make the nations around you serve you", but the formula of:

God acts in a significant way, and then a group knows that he is truly God.

has me thinking about what it takes for me to evaluate my world view. What would it take for me to become, say, an open theist? Or a Calvinist? Or a Muslim?