Money
A now-famous bumper sticker reads, “I can’t be overdrawn—I still have checks left!” People have tremendous problems in many different areas dealing with money, including the following:
A now-famous bumper sticker reads, “I can’t be overdrawn—I still have checks left!” People have tremendous problems in many different areas dealing with money, including the following:
• impulse spending
• careless budgeting
• living beyond one’s means
• credit problems
• chronically borrowing from friends
• ineffectual savings plans
• working more to pay all the bills
• enabling others
God intended for money to be a blessing to us and others: “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38).
Most of us would certainly agree that we need to be in control of our finances. Saving money, keeping costs down, and shopping for discounts are all good things. It’s tempting to see money problems as simply a need for more income; however, the problem often isn’t the high cost of living—it’s the cost of high living.
The problem of our financial outgo exceeding our input is a self-boundary issue. When we have difficulty saying no to spending more than we should, we run the risk of becoming someone else’s servant:
“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov. 22:7).
Time
Many people feel that their time is out of control. They are “eleventh-hour people,” constantly on the edge of deadlines. Try as they might, they find the day—every day— getting away from them. There just aren’t enough hours to accomplish their tasks. The word early doesn’t seem to be part of their personal experience. Some of the time binds these strugglers deal with are these:
• business meetings
• luncheon appointments
• project deadlines
• social and school activities
• holiday mailings
These people breeze into meetings fifteen minutes late and breathlessly apologize, talking about traffic, overwhelming job responsibilities, or kid emergencies. People whose time is out of control inconvenience others whether they mean to or not. The problem often stems from one or more of the following causes:
Time
Many people feel that their time is out of control. They are “eleventh-hour people,” constantly on the edge of deadlines. Try as they might, they find the day—every day— getting away from them. There just aren’t enough hours to accomplish their tasks. The word early doesn’t seem to be part of their personal experience. Some of the time binds these strugglers deal with are these:
• business meetings
• luncheon appointments
• project deadlines
• social and school activities
• holiday mailings
These people breeze into meetings fifteen minutes late and breathlessly apologize, talking about traffic, overwhelming job responsibilities, or kid emergencies. People whose time is out of control inconvenience others whether they mean to or not. The problem often stems from one or more of the following causes:
1. Omnipotence. These people have unrealistic, somewhat grandiose expectations of what they can accomplish in a given amount of time. “No problem—I’ll do it” is their motto.
2. Over-responsibility for the feelings of others. They think that leaving a party too early will cause the host to feel abandoned.
3. Lack of realistic anxiety. They live so much in the present that they neglect to plan ahead for traffic, parking the car, or dressing for an outing.
4. Rationalization. They minimize the distress and inconvenience that others must put up with because of their lateness. They think, “They’re my friends—they’ll understand.”
The person with undeveloped time sell-boundaries ends up frustrating not only others, but himself. He ends the day without the sense that a “desire realized is sweet to the soul" instead, he is left with unrealized desires, half-baked projects, and the realization that tomorrow will begin with him running behind schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment