Money Where My Mouth Is

I am having transmission trouble.  Figurative transmission trouble, that is.

Next Thursday is my husband's last day of work.  He has a second interview on Monday with a company two hours from the city, and that's our only prospect right now.  I oscillate, sometimes more rapidly than a water molecule in a microwave oven, between calm certainty in the providence of God and white-knuckled what-iffing.

It might work out swimmingly.  The job my husband held for the past year was interesting and satisfying and lucrative (by our standards), but the hours were crazy.  For weeks at a time he would have to work until after the kids were in bed.  I tried not to complain, because we had planned for his bonus check (tied to hours billed and thus to late nights worked) to be our down payment when we were ready to buy a place, but I did wonder how I would manage when we had another baby.  It might be that he will slide right into another job with more family-friendly hours.  It might.  (Vigorously waving away louring freakout here.)

Here is my problem:  I ought to write our tithe checks from that bonus money this week, and I am encountering enormous internal resistance. 

I am quoting the Bible at myself.  God loves a cheerful giver.  Honor the Lord with your wealth.  Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  Who wants her heart to be in a bank account?

I am finding it annoying to have the Bible quoted at me.

This year marks the first time we have scooted away from the edge financially since we had kids.  We have always had enough to get by, but not much more than that.  This money is a kind of security for me.  It is something of a bulwark.

But what is a Christian doing saying that anything other than God is her bulwark?

I am thinking of all the good those checks could do.  Aid for the tsunami victims.  Food for the poor in Haiti.  Shelter and prenatal care for pregnant women in my city.  And here I am, in my comfortable apartment with my three healthy sons, afraid that God won't provide so I'd better hold tight to what we have right now.  Romans 8:32 is floating reproachfully at the periphery of my mind.  This is one of those rubber-meets-the-road moments, and I can't seem to get into first gear.

In September Alex and I read the book of Joshua together.  One of the things that always strikes me about the beginning of Joshua is the timing of the Jordan crossing.  The priests had to wade into the water, bearing the ark, before God stopped the river for them to enter the Promised Land.  None of them had been alive to witness the Red Sea miracle.  Surely some of them thought, privately, that Joshua was a straight-up nutcase.  Sometimes you have to step into the water to see the faithful hand of God.

I've never liked swimming.  That water looks awfully cold from here.

I am tempted to indulge in magical thinking.  Maybe the minute I put the checks in the mailbox, someone will call my husband saying, "You!  You're the person we've been searching for!  Please come and work for us!  We need you to do our fascinating low-stress job with great co-workers and an understanding boss which happens to be right on your preferred public transit route!"

But I know better than that.  I shouldn't write those checks in hopes of bribing God, or adding oomph to my prayers, or any other similar nonsense.  I should do it simply because it is the right thing to do.

Last week our car window, which had been broken for almost a month, started working again.  "What did you do to it?" my husband asked.  "I kept praying," I said. "Maybe," I joked, "I could start a repair shop where I lay hands on people's broken vehicles."  I was thinking I could call it Gladly's Re-prayer Shop.  Obviously the first thing I should work on is my own reluctant transmission:  re-prayer-person, heal thyself.

The spirit is willing, but the gears are grinding.