Mo' Money

Ecclesiastes 10:19

A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.

You don't know the struggle if you've never had a few struggle snacks and meals growing up. My struggle snacks were syrup sandwiches, Peter Pan peanut butter on a spoon, and Vienna sausages. And till this day you will never be able to get me to eat another bowl of black-eyed peas because that was the go to struggle meal for us. But plenty of times we would go to bed with just a piece of toast on our bellies. Me and my two siblings, were birthed in poverty. 

All I've ever known was the struggle. We never had money. Our clothes came from thrift stores and hand me downs from cousins. One time in 8th grade my cousin gave me a pair of her white and blue Reeboks. I was so happy to replace my Nike knock offs for a real pair of name brand sneakers that I cleaned them as best as I could and coated them with white shoe polish, I don't know how many times. When I went to school, I felt like I was floating! That is until one of my classmates pointed out that my shoes weren't new and that they could see where I'd polished them. Ha! 
Talk about a crushed dream and a definite reminder that I was POOR! 

In highschool, an announcement was made that CPS would be providing summer jobs for students who applied by a certain date. I made sure I did so just to have some money in my pockets. I worked every summer. I did some babysitting too one summer after I was notified that CPS funding was not allocated for the particular assignment I'd been placed to complete. 

Then I got my first real job at KFC my senior year. I was proud to work and happy that I could provide for myself the things a young teenage girl needed. I wasn't trying to be smart with my money though. 
I splurged on things to keep from reminding myself that I was still poor. 

I moved out of my parents house at 21 right before my 22nd birthday. Matter of fact I ran. I vowed to never go back. 
What was I running from? 
The memories and reminders, that I was poor. 

I worked two part-time jobs for a minute while pursuing my Bachelors in Finance full-time here in the city of Chicago. Student loan refund checks were my subsidy. 
I left one job because I no longer felt safe coming home late from the west side of Chicago back to the south side. Though I'm a city slicker, I've always had enough street smarts to know that some places in the city more than others, can be an unforgiving beast after a certain hour of night. 
I was no longer in the mood of risking my life for coin. 
One of my supervisors at the job I quit, told me that I would be moving back home in a year anyway. #Negative 

 Imagine the panic that crept up when I graduated from college and I couldn't find a full-time job. No longer having the luxury of those refund checks from school, the thoughts of going back home would haunt me terribly. I remember one evening after getting off of my part-time job as a cashier at a grocery store, I came into my apartment and fell to the middle of the floor crying my eyes out. 

I was growing tired of being harassed by the memories and reminders, that I was poor. I was petrified that I would be pulled back to that place of agonizing lack. The thoughts of a past filled with empty bellies, sleeping in extra layers of clothes because there was no heat, and boiling water on the stove to take baths, played on my nerves like a toddler beating on a piano. 

I was confused about my current state. I didn't understand how on earth could I be a child of God and yet I felt like my poorness had me in a fierce headlock. I angrily snatched from off my computer desk my brown NIV Bible. I pulled out a slip of paper with a list of scriptures I'd jotted down that I considered useful for emergencies. 
This was my CODE RED! 

Philippians 4:19 is what I decided to digest for my anxious soul that says, 
"And my God will meet all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
I would meditate on this scripture and repeat it to myself for weeks. 

Oh, wait! Did I forget to speak? How rude of me!

Hi! Thanks for stopping by today! 
I thought I might grab a hold of the reins of this ghastly beast by the name of Mammon or the god of mo' money, and his petty counterpart; Poverty, before the fast approaching holidays greets us.  

Moving right along. I believe it was a month or so later that I got a job at a bank which is when I realized Philippians 4:19 had come to past over my life. For almost five years, God was indeed supplying ALL of my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I literally needed for nothing. My refrigerator and cabinets were never empty. My bills were always paid on time. My credit was A1. I was able to take a few trips out of state with friends. I was able to move into a bigger place. I lived in a very busy and congested area of the city so I didn't feel I needed a car. I never had to borrow a dime from anybody. God had answered my prayers. 
I was good. I was living my best life. 

THEN, CLICK, BOOM!!!

Everything came crashing down, sending me back home. 
The place I was trying everything within my being for just about seven years not to go back to. 

I've come to realize that in me using Philippians 4:19 as the signature for my petition to God, my unrested heart was arrested by my request to fund my life as a fugitive of my past. I was on the run from my poor past so I was always in survival mode. 

My prayers were all geared towards remaining on the run. 
No matter how much money I made, it was never enough because I was always living in a constant state of fear that my past would come knocking on the door with handcuffs to lock me back up. 

On top of that, I was suffering from low self esteem and rejection around this time so I would spend recklessly, give frivolously, and sow ignorantly. Money became an idol. I needed mo' money so that I could spend, give, and sow mo' money to boost my self esteem. I was not a good steward over my finances at all. Although physically it appeared as if I was living in abundance, mentally I was still in poverty because of my poor decisions. 

After losing my job in 2015, do you know I was still making poor decisions? I was still spending recklessly, giving frivolously, and sowing ignorantly that is until my job fought my unemployment benefits and had them stopped after 2 months. I would go without a job or any real income for two whole bitter years. 
It was during this time that I came face to face with the origin of my own poverty and the influence of mammon over my life. 

Poverty, I don't care what anybody has to say it is a collection of poor, ignorant, choices. Despite the fact that I was born into an environment of limited resources, I made the decision once I got older, to find legal resources to get me out of that environment and to sustain me. I couldn't afford to find an excuse. I needed resources. 
However my issue, as I mentioned before, was my mind. 
I was still mentally living in the crux of the place I was trying not to revisit and I subconsciously created a pathway back to that place. Thanks to my poor decisions. 

Now I need you to understand something as a believer, poverty is not a noun. It is not a thing. It is an action. We can choose to live in poverty or we can opt out of living in poverty by the way we make our decisions. If this isn't true, explain to me how can a person (true story) making 6 figures find themselves living from pay check to pay check and pinching pennies? 
You make a host of poor decisions, you reap poverty. You make a god out of money, you will reap poverty. 

Matthew 6:24
No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 

As long as you and I are on this earth, we are going to need money. That is a given. We need it to eat. We need shelter. We need clothing. We need to take care of our earthly temples and our families. Here's the deal, we just can't love money more than we love God and we must be willing to confront those weeds in our minds that is currently keeping us in a place of survival mode. If Jesus said that He came to give us life and that more abundantly, (John 10:10) what makes you think that living in survival has anything to do with that? 
Huh, beloved? 

Hey let me bring you back to my tender side for a moment as I share with you these two accounts. One beautiful Sunday morning, I ran into a derelict on my way to church. He only had four front teeth but was not ashamed to smile when he saw me and greeted me with a, 
"GOOD MORNING!" 
I spoke back. He asked me was I going to church. I told him yes. He asked me if I could say a prayer for him. I told him yes.

Immediately, I felt a jerk in my soul urging me to do something right then and there. I begin to pray and asked God to cover him. Then Holy Spirit nudged me and told me he needed food. So I asked God to provide for him food to eat. Then it felt like somebody pulled me out of my seat and sent me over to the man. I told him I was going to pray for him. 
He said, "I need something to eat. I'm hungry." 

Every month I typically set aside $40 for street charity so I knew I had something to give.
I dug in my bag and gave him what was left of that budget, probably around $7.

He smiled valiantly and shouted, "I can get me something to eat! I can get me something to He told me his name was Thomas Prince and to say a prayer for him. 

One evening after work, I decided to grab a small pizza because this was one of many days I skipped lunch. I didn't even really have a taste for pizza but I got it anyway. I was on the train when a homeless lady got on with her hand out soliciting for money. I reached in my bag and gave her $5. She asked if she could have a slice of pizza. All the passengers were now looking dead at me and shaking their heads. I reached into the box and pulled out a hot hefty slice of pizza. Somebody next to me said jokingly, "She's going to need dessert after this." 

I remembered that the receptionist at my job bought me a cupcake for my birthday. I'd already eaten the cupcake my coworkers had bought me. So, I gave her the cupcake. 

These two events in my ever so random life is not in no way to make myself look good because to be honest, the first time I didn't know what to do and the second time, I was slightly annoyed and didn't want to do anything. 

 I believe that these accounts are a clear testament of what it looks like to not just have enough but also what it looks like to have excess where one can be a person who 
is the answer. 

Instead of a person who prays for an answer. 
Does this make sense? 

I have long since divorced the mentality that in order to love God that means that I have to be poor. This is an oxymoron to me. God is a God of abundance and His entire word is the prosperity gospel! As I abide in Him and follow His word, it will be inevitable for me to experience the fullness of His abundance and to reap physical manifestations of His prosperity, whatever that looks like. Because God will lead me to make rich decisions not poor ones. And God will mold me to be the answer in places where there are many questions. 

With that being said, I'm now currently in the process of destroying anything in my mind that is causing me to fear a past God has already delivered me from. And I'm tearing down anything that can be used against me, to appoint something other than God over me to serve which would inhibit me from living in complete financial freedom. 
Moreover, I've already become well acquainted with the God that supplies all of my needs. I'm eager to get to know the God of exceeding abundantly all that I can ever ask or think. 
Care to join me in this mood?