Day 22 of the 30-Day Praise Challenge

 

Day 22

Becky Harling  @ https://beckyharling.com/

“And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God & Father be glory for ever & ever. Amen.” – Phil.4:19-20

The Invitation

“I am God, & I abundantly provide for your needs. When the economy is failing & job loss statistics rise, many grow fearful. My child, don’t give in to the temptation to doubt My ability to give you what you need.

Instead praise Me for being the God Who Provides.

Whether you are doing well financially or struggling to pay the bills, whether you have a job or are unemployed, train yourself to give Me thanks in all things.

Thank Me for small gifts as well as big gifts. I love it when My children say, “Thank You.” Gratitude opens the door to greater blessing. Don’t set your hope on wealth. It is uncertain & rises & falls with the stock market. Instead, praise Me. Watch & see how I provide for all your needs.

I provided manna in the wilderness & water in the desert for My children.

I provided the lamb for Abraham on Mt. Moriah. This was a beautiful foreshadowing of what I would do later in history by providing My Own Son, Jesus Christ, as the ultimate sacrifice for all that you need.

Trust Me, My child. Everything you have needed, I have provided.”

(Mal.3:10; Mat.6:33; Ps.11:4-5; Heb.13:15; Is.43:20; Gen.22:8; 2Cor.12:9; Phil.4:11-12)

God is the God Who Provides. Praise Him that your financial situation or job situation is not catching Him off guard. Thank Him that He has promised to provide for your needs. If you don’t struggle financially, thank & praise God for His blessings. Thank Him that He will provide in the future for every need, even those you are not aware of at this time.

“The eyes of all look to You, & You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand & satisfy the desires of every living thing.” (Ps.145:15-16)

Listen

Listen to “Blessed Be Your Name” performed by Matt Redman.

Pray

I exalt You, God; You are my King. Sometimes fear grips my heart as I look around & see what’s happening in the economy in our country & around the world.

Thank You that I can trust You to provide for my needs. You are the God of abundance who consistently provides.

Thank You that stock-market crashes, job losses, & financial disasters can’t separate me from Your love.

I praise You, because You grant peace during times of financial upheaval, & You promise to satisfy me with food that comes directly from Your hand. I extol You, Lord, because none of my needs catch You off guard.

Thank You for teaching me how to be content, no matter what my circumstances. I am so grateful that whether I have a little or a lot, You provide opportunities for me to trust You.

Thank You that You are the Lord of my finances, & that as I place You first in my giving, saving, & spending, You will pour out more blessing than I can imagine. (Ps.145:1; Phil.4:19; Rom.8:36-38; Ps.147:14; Phil.4:11; Mat.6:33)

Journal

Think through your financial situation. How might praising God consistently help you move toward contentment & freedom from worry about finances?

Did God speak to you about your finances during your praise time today? If so, what did He say?

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The Four Best "Personal Finance 101" Resources I've Found Online

The Simple Dollar, 16 Nov 2013

Quite a few people enter adulthood without understanding the basics of personal finance.

That’s a sad statement—but it’s a true one. Personal finance is often a lesson that parents don’t feel comfortable teaching to their children and public schools rarely take a major role on this topic, either. It’s rarely included in state education curriculums.

While The Simple Dollar can and does play a role in fixing this problem, there are quite a few websites out there that do a spectacular job of handling the basics of personal finance, from the simplest baby steps of figuring out how to handle debt to explaining the details of how stocks work.

Over the years, I’ve viewed many of these resources, but I find that my recommendations to others often come down to just a small handful of sites.

If you’re looking to learn about personal finance from scratch, these are the four sites that I find myself recommending most of the time. All of them are wonderful resources. They each do a great job of spelling out the specifics of many basic personal finance issues and questions.

Yahoo! Finance Education (http://finance.yahoo.com/education)
Best for: written explanations of personal finance ideas

Whenever I want a clear and straightforward explanation of a personal finance term, this is usually the site I turn to first.

Yahoo! Finance Education is a well-written encyclopedia of personal finance topics, presented almost entirely in an unbiased manner (it’s very difficult to write about everything in personal finance without some bias, but they do a very good job).

If you want to know exactly what debt means or want to learn what a P/E ratio means for stocks or how to buy a bond and you prefer the written word, this is the premier place to go.

Finance at Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance)
Best for: video-based presentations of financial topics

This is the best set of video presentations on personal finance that I’ve found, though I think that in places the tone and level of discourse gets a bit beyond the basics.

The one thing that really sets these videos apart from the rest—well, aside from the fact that they are videos and not text—is that the talks often digress into a wider picture than just personal finance. For example, the discussion on inflation talks about the personal impact of it, but it also focuses on what inflation actually is and how it’s caused.

Money 101 at CNN Money (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/)
Best for: a tutorial-style walkthrough of the basics you need to know

If you’re sitting down and thinking to yourself, “I don’t know much about money… I wish I had someone to walk me through all of this stuff step by step,” this is the site for you.

Money 101 presents the basics of what you need to know about personal finance as a series of lessons that you can go through one at a time to teach yourself the basics of personal finance.

If you thrive on an organized lesson-based setting for learning, this might be your best bet.

Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps (http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-steps/)
Best for: people who need a guiding hand as to how to fix their basic financial problems

Some people are simply struggling with debt and with knowing what to do next. They don’t want to or need to know all of the details right now—they’re in a bind and they want solutions first.

In that situation, I think that Dave Ramsey’s “Baby Steps” is the best package of solution-oriented personal finance materials out there.

Rather than feeling like a teacher, the sense you get here is that of a hard-nosed coach who has a game plan that works and wants to motivate you to move on down the path. It’s lighter on the specifics, but heavier on the plan itself and the motivation to do it.

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