Tool Belt

Curled up on the sofa, hot cup of coffee in hand, I flipped through the television channels in search of some morning news. My interest was peaked when I landed on a rerun of an old reality show about a money guru and her radical measures to help family understand, and get a grip on, their debt.

This particular episode profiled a middle-age couple drowning under mountains of debt created from lavish overspending. The husband in this dynamic duo hadn’t a clue how many hardware store credit cards he had, or the amount debt accumulated on each card.

He was sent on a mission to dig through his garage, shed, and storage room and find every tool he had acquired in his- ahem– collection. This poor soul was overwhelmed by the task and shocked to find out that not only did he have every tool imaginable, but multiples of each tool. And he had tools that he had never even used for he did not know how to use them. This poor soul had been foolish and was now being exposed for his folly on national television.

Proverbs 21:20, The wise have wealth and luxury,
but fools spend whatever they get.

Perhaps you think of tools the way I do- simply as things with which we use to fix, build, or create. But have you ever considered the thought that money is a tool? The word tool itself is an Old English term from a Germanic base meaning ‘prepare’.

In flimsy pieces of paper and numbers on a screen, we search for security, happiness, and fulfillment. We give our love to something that could never profess the same devotion. We allow it to keep us awake at night and hold power over our thoughts. We believe the lie that money will shape our identity. But if we give money the power to do these things, the only identity we will have is that of a fool. And a tool… as in someone who lacks the ability to know that they are being used.

God does not desire us to look or be the fool in the eyes of the world, but the enemy of our soul certainly does. And he will use any means he can to distract us from wanting God’s best by deceiving us into attempting to fulfill the void ourselves. Somehow the enemy has tricked us into believing that money is the solver of all problems, the fulfillment of all fantasies, and the answer to all our needs. In the bible, money is referenced over 800 times. Jesus says in Luke 16:11, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” It appears from this verse that God uses money as a test of our stewardship skills before entrusting us with spiritual things.

So, let us no longer be distracted or kept up at night in worry. Let us put on our belt of truth that money is a tool in our belt used in the process of our transformation and sanctification to prepare us for things that are greater and of much more value to the Kingdom of God.

Father, like all tools, we must learn how to use them properly in order for them to be effective. Help us to understand the simple principles of stewardship so that we can be effective in your kingdom. In Jesus name, Amen.

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