Don't take more than you can carry...

In Exodus, the Israelites were fed manna (which literally meant "what is it?"... thanks Don Sailer!), and told to only collect enough for that day. But instead, they would try to collect for the next day as well, so they didn't have to go out every day. They did the exact opposite of what God told them to do, because they were lazy and impatient, and the manna turned into maggots the next day. It was stinky and gross.

I think debt is the maggot of our day. See, God promises to provide what we need for the day, "our daily bread", and that should be enough for us. Often, however, it just isn't, and we feel the need to buy more stuff than we can afford. We get into debt, paying for the toys of today with our futures. I know a lot about that. I got into quite a bit of debt when I was younger and am still paying for it today. The funny thing is, I've got pretty much nothing to show for it.

"Don't spend what you don't have."

It seems like such a simple principle, and for most of history it was the only honorable way to live. Debts unpaid would mean time in prison, or in servitude. It was disgraceful to live in debt.

But now, it's almost considered disgraceful to not have credit. Our culture is one that tries to gather more than we can carry, and that leads to burdens we can't lift on our own, burdens we weren't meant to have. When we can't carry them, someone else has to... and that's how the economy was destroyed, but that's another subject.

The point to this is, we must trust in God to provide us with what we need, and trust that what we are provided with is enough and that we do not "need" more. This is really, really hard to do when it seems like your "daily bread" is way smaller than your appetite, but God knows exactly what He's doing. When you diet, your stomach gets smaller as it gets used to less food, and perhaps our appetites for shiny new things would also get smaller if we'd just get on a budget.

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't save money, because that is more of a stewardship issue. We are told to handle our money wisely. No, this is about stuff... and how we need less of it. In fact, if we'd just save and not spend every last "extra" dollar we have, we may be able to buy something pretty sweet when it's all said and done...or maybe even change the world.