It’s God’s Money

I wrote an article titled “The Christian Trader: God’s Money” on 3/19/13 for my trading blog, Trader Educator Online. Today, I was inspired to revisit the topic.

Recently, I refinanced my house at a great interest rate. During the closing, the bank paid one-half of my real-estate taxes out of escrow. Yesterday, I called the governmental agency responsible for real-estate taxes. The following describes the salient points of a discussion I had with a very nice government employee with an interesting perspective:

Terry: “I just refinanced my house and want to check that the bank paid the first half of my real-estate taxes.”

Nice Lady: “The owner paid them.”

Terry: “I am the owner and I didn’t pay them.”

Nice Lady: “The owner paid them.”

Terry: “I am the owner and I didn’t pay them. The bank paid them.”

Nice Lady: “No, the owner paid them.”

Terry: (thinking) By now, I feel like I am in a new episode of The Twilight Zone. So I say, “I guess it doesn’t matter who paid the first half of the real-estate taxes, just that they’re paid.”

The nice lady agreed. So we discussed the second-half of the real-estate taxes while I felt a sense of lingering weirdness.

In God’s Hands

When I told this story to my wife, Deb, we both laughed. Then I had a spontaneous thought that the dialogue works if the owner is God and if it’s God’s money. I needed to be reminded that all my money comes through the grace of God. Since we were just guided by God to take a financial risk in our lives, we needed this reminder.  Now we are living on the razor’s edge (paradoxically, the safest place to be) and our fate is in God’s hands. I guess this isn’t different from any other day.

Background Image by Helder Almeida.

Linked with Thought-Provoking Thursday.