Wanted: Financial Manager of $2,000,000

We started a new series on money this week at church. Nothing too earth shattering since I've had the good fortune of working through several different biblical studies on finances. But a couple thoughts that stood out to me.

I was talking with a friend today about three different axis involved in having a biblically sound financial aspect. One is the heart of spending - selfish vs. generous, a second of wisdom (e.g. budget or impulse spending), and the third is the fearful vs. calm spectrum: Do I trust God to meet my needs?

The irony is that there are many people who are fiscally responsible out of selfishness and distrust of God's provision. (This is my natural leaning - why spend irresponsibly and get myself in trouble later?) And then there are those who love giving and spending but never plan ahead, and call it trusting God. The problem, of course, is that it disregards most of the biblical principles on financial matters.

On the flip-side, I was talking to my friend about what it means to have trust in God when one also has an solid emergency account. If I'm relaxed and secure, is it because I have great faith in God, or because I know that rarely does God inflict Job-like disasters on middle-class Americans with wise savings habits? (At least, in my small sample size, it's rare.)

There's something unsettling that doing the right thing seems to make trusting God financially more of an intellectual exercise than anything else.

A Quick Rembrance

In light of the recent political uproar regarding Senator Obama and assorted racial comments, it reminds me of the firestorm that Michigan went through 18 months ago regarding the highly controversial Proposition 2. I heard lots of impassioned arguments about the disaster it would be. And since then, silence. Even the Wikipedia entry hasn't really updated with the actual impact of Proposition 2.

I wonder - do we know the results yet? If we do, do we remembered what we argued, why, and whether it matched reality?

Everyone should be an engineer...mahahaha

So I spent most of today at work trying to solve the fact that three systems which work beautifully individually don't work together at all. On the rare occasions when system Alpha interacts with Beta or Gamma, the result is roughly a blue screen of death. (Of course, we have a much prettier blue screen of death, but when all the glitz and glamor is stripped away, it's still just a blue screen.)

I realized today that most people probably never deal with the complexity of trying to get all the systems to work together. Tax returns are probably a good equivalent, but most of us get someone else to do our taxes. I wonder if architects and builders sympathize with the problem. Do they ever just finish the cafeteria when another architect comes over and says "What have you done? This space was for the geckos!"

Justice

I've been contemplating the meaning of justice lately. (And yes, I've been planning on blogging on this topic even without my car getting broken into. But it did lead to some amusing moments like this:

Nice insurance guy: Was the car locked?

Me: Yes - presumably that's why they broke the window.

Me thinking: You know, I'm not a member of the Frequent Auto Burglars Association, but generally I assume that the reason burglars break car windows is because the car was locked. Now maybe there's a bunch of thieves that just break the windows without checking, but in that case, it doesn't really matter if the car was locked or not, does it?

Anyway, I've been contemplating justice. What does it mean to advocate justice in the United States? More welfare for the poor? More homeless shelters? Higher taxes for the rich? Bigger jails to hold car thieves? Making lawsuits harder? Making medical malpractice suits easier?

I've been realizing how much I tend to think of justice in a handful of options - jail time, fines, or death. But rarely do those options seem like effective executions of justice.