THE TEST OF FINANCIAL HARMONY
QUESTION: Are You Speaking The Same Financial Language With Your Spouse?
The test of financial harmony is to examine how harmonious you and your husband are in your finances. In the home of many ministers of God, there are a lot of dichotomy in their financial lives which creates diverse problems in such homes. Virtually all pastors go through some period of financial challenges, especially when the ministry is still struggling. Apart from other factors, financial challenges in the life of pastors are usually due to the misunderstanding of God’s financial plan for their ministry. The following are basically the dealings of God in the financial life of pastors. As a pastor’s wife, it is important that you understand these dealings along with your spouse so that you will be in position to pray along with him, understand him, counsel and wherever necessary.
There are basically three kinds of financial dealings of God with His servants in the Bible, and by extension in ministry today. The first is Adam’s dealing, the second is Moses’ dealing, while the third is Paul’s dealing.
ADAMS DEALING.
When God created Adam, he was put in the Garden of Eden. All his needs were supplied without him having any reason to work other than keeping the garden.
The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(Gen.2:8&9)
A minister with Adam’s dealing is a minister who God would have made all provisions for even before starting the ministry or makes provision for as the need arises. If your husband is under such dealing, when a car is needed, someone will just be prompted to come and give him a car. He may not need to build a house because, at a stage, God will just spur people who may not even be his members to build a befitting house for him. If you are not under such an arrangement, you don’t need to envy those that are there or fast for the next ninety days so that God will do something like that for you. Under this dealing, he may not even need to ask anyone, as God will just prompt somebody and the person will not have peace until he releases what God has asked him to release to him. Under such dealing, once your husband is consistent with God in doing His will and building according to the pattern given to him, his needs both personal and ministerial, will be divinely met.
Any minister under Moses’ dealing will have to ask people what he needs for ministry. However, as he asks, God will back his request up in such a way that people will respond to such request and the need will be met. If you are under this dealing, when you have any project that is within your God-given assignment, God will lead you to who or those He will use for the project and they will give abundantly towards the actualization of the project. If you and such a minister make request to the same person, you will just discover that for reasons you can’t explain, his own request will be attended to while yours will not attract the same attention.
In Exodus 35:4-7, Moses requested from the Israelites what would be needed to build the tabernacle. The people responded so positively that Moses had to forbid them from further giving:
MOSES’ DEALING.
So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much. (Ex.36:6-7)
However, even under Moses’ dealing, you have to hear from God to ask from the people. Secondly, you have to build according to the pattern you were given. And finally, you have to avoid wastage. You can’t, for instance, ask for donations towards the building of the church and divert the funds to your own personal use; it will make your supply source to run dry.
PAUL’S DEALING.
There are ministers of God who don’t fall into any of the two categories above. In their own case, they fall into the category of Paul the Apostle who did so much for the cause of the gospel and was responsible for a great percentage of the New Testament writings. Yet, he had to combine secular work with ministry. He said:
‘Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me. I have shown you in every way, by labouring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ (Act.20:34-35)
This is the category I found myself in ministry. By the time God’s calling came, I had already been given the grace to run a successful school at the nursery, primary and secondary levels for eighteen years. It would have been somehow for me to throw away what God had already given me, as He did not ask me to do so, when I received the call. In fact, God really made use of the school to help us in ministry. The programmes we were running initially were wholly sponsored by the schools. At a stage I was asked to establish a retreat ground in my village. The acquisition of about eight hectares of land and the initial structures on it were put in place without donation from anyone. Even when we were asked to start church five years after the take-off of the ministry, the initial expenses of getting musical instruments, land acquisition and building the church structure was executed with just a little contribution from the membership of the young congregation. I combined running the school and ministry until ten years later when God told me that I should leave the school and face ministry. When God had planned that our ministry would have a presence in the republic of Togo, starting with our missionary efforts in that country, He made it happen that one thing led to another that made our school to be established in the country. The school in Togo played a major role in sponsoring the mission work as well as the other arms of the ministry in Togo. In fact at a stage He told me that the school should become an arm of the ministry!
Paul’s dealing in ministry makes you to consider a secular work with your spiritual assignments. But you must know that priority should be given to the spiritual assignments. If not, God can take the secular business from you and it will lead to you struggling to meet up with your targets in ministry.
Summarily, you can run into financial challenges in ministry if you don’t identify your own financial dealings and start comparing yourself with someone who is not in the same financial dealings with you. If, for instance, you are in either Adam’s or Moses’ dealing, and God arranged fund for you for a major project in the ministry, but you looked at your friend who is doing one particular business in ministry and you diverted that money into it. That business may fail and you will now find it difficult to raise another fund making you to be under stress in ministry. If on the other hand, like me, you are in the Paul’s dealing and you throw what you have in hand away because you want to be like your friend who is in not doing any secular work along with ministry, you may lose your source of funds in ministry and start looking for ungodly sources of funds to do God’s work. The truth is that if you are building according to pattern and you recognize your own divine financial dealings, God pays for whatever He has ordered.
When Your Calling and/or Vision Is Doubtful.
As noted earlier, there are those who go into ministry without God actually calling them. When you decide going into ministry by yourself, you will also be the one that will decide how to get money by the time you realize that God is not funding the ministry. There are also those who, out of covetousness, deliberately go into what God has not called them into. There are those who when they discover that deliverance ministry is the one in vogue, they become deliverance ministers, only to later become prophet again at will. Such people will undoubtedly run into financial challenges that will require them to use their own human wisdom to solve.
As a result of the above, when you notice undue pressure in the finance of your husband, you must ask the following questions:
• Are we doing ministry according to the vision given to us?
• Do we understand and operate in God’s financial dealing for us?
• Is there any area of life in which we are not in God’s will?
• Are we in the location that we were assigned to?
• Could it be that we are too much in a hurry?
• Is God teaching us something?
On a final note, do you know that you may be one of the reasons why there is financial pressure in your husband’s ministry? If God planned that at a particular period, your finance will be needed in the ministry and you are withholding your funds for any reason.
Having asked all the questions that could be asked, you and your husband, as the case may be, may need to make certain adjustments, ask for forgiveness, pray prayer of agreement for God to intervene in your finances. When you are sincerely doing the above as a couple in ministry, not believing that it is your husband’s headache, you are speaking the same financial language. In other words, you are on the same page financially, and there will definitely be a turnaround in that ministry.
Are you speaking the same financial language with your husband?
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
