Digging for Gold … Beneath the Money
By Janel Breitenstein
If someone asked you where your spouse is most vulnerable, what would you say? (Hint: Hopefully you wouldn’t.)
My husband knows most of mine: many things that send me reeling where others may only see me smile gamely.
He knows that last night just trying on a pair of shorts, my second pair in 10 years, triggered all my old body-image issues and left me curled beside him.
So let me delicately mention another likely vulnerable topic between the two of you: money.
Jesus tells us, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
We spend—or strategically save—in ways that address some of our most core longings: for security. Control. Power. Comfort. Appearance. Acceptance. Influence. Independence. Connectedness.
Sometimes those desires swell beyond their proper place and become demands; or they become things we depend on when we’re afraid. (Sometimes these are known as idols.)
So, yes, these desires might be a place of pain and anger for you. But they’re also a place of profound vulnerability for your spouse—just like your hopes behind money are for you.
The next time you two scuffle about money, set the money aside for a minute. Ask your spouse about the concern beneath the money. Chances are, underneath even illegitimate desires lie concerns that are quite real.
How can you receive your spouse there, and see the value in what’s sacred to the person God asks you to care for? How can you be a safe place and demonstrate God’s trustworthiness and nurture?
How can you keep money from being a source of conflict? Read on.
The Good Stuff: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)
Action Points: Get aware of your own “treasure beneath the treasure” of money. What motivates the ways you handle money? In what ways can those things tend to grow beyond their place and into the place of God?
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