I Called It Being Sensible

You have never once said no to this family out of meanness.

Every refusal you have made has come with a reason attached to it, and the reasons have been good ones. There is a mortgage. There are three of them to get through school. There is what happened to your father, who worked until he was sixty six and then had four years. You have seen what happens to people who do not think ahead, and you have decided not to be one of them.

So when your wife raises going somewhere, you do the arithmetic out loud, and the arithmetic is honest, and the answer is not this year.

And here is the thing I want to say to you, carefully, because I am not going to tell you to be less careful with money.

Somewhere in the last few years, the not going stopped being a financial decision and became a moral one.

You do not say we cannot afford it any more. You say things like it is not a priority, and there are better uses for it, and I do not want the children growing up expecting that sort of thing. Those are not budget sentences. Those are sentences about what kind of man you are and what kind of family this is.

And once a decision becomes a matter of character, it cannot be reviewed. That is what I want to go at, because I do not think you noticed the change, and I think it has been costing this house something for years.

Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy

There is a verse in the first letter to Timothy that is a warning about money, and there is a clause in it that almost nobody quotes.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17, King James Version)

The warning is real. Do not be highminded. Do not trust uncertain riches. Both of those have been obeyed in this house with more consistency than in most men I know.

Now read the last clause, slowly, because it is the one your version of this verse does not have in it.

Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.

You have a clause in the written word that puts enjoying on God's side of the table, and no amount of carefulness has ever once made that clause somebody else's. 1 Timothy 6:17 finishes its warning about money with the word enjoy rather than with a warning about enjoying, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a man notice a clause he has been reading past for twenty years.

Look at the three words together, because they are doing a lot. Giveth. Richly. Enjoy.

Not permits. Not tolerates in moderation. Giveth, and richly, and the stated purpose of the giving is enjoyment. That is not the language of a God who has to be talked into a Saturday.

And it sits in the same sentence as the warning, which means the warning was never against gladness. It was against trusting the money instead of Him.

You are able to hold both halves of that verse at once, and being careful with money has never once required you to be suspicious of gladness. It is written that He giveth richly all things to enjoy in the very sentence that warns against uncertain riches, which is why the two are not opposites, and the Spirit of God is what unpicks in a man what a phrase has been welded to for years.

Here is the test I would put to you. If a thing is genuinely unaffordable, you can say the number. If it is a matter of principle, you cannot, because there is no number. And I suspect that if your wife asked you tonight what a day out would have to cost to be acceptable, you could not name a figure, and that is the tell.

You are permitted to want something for this family without justifying it, and wanting it has never once been the beginning of trusting in uncertain riches. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a wise man from a frightened one in a man's own mind, and 1 Timothy 6 ends its charge about money on the word enjoy.

Wisdom has a shape, and this is not it

Now the honest part, and I say it as somebody who respects what has been built here.

Real wisdom about money is specific. It has numbers in it. It says: not this month, because of that bill, and then in April, because by then the thing is paid.

What has taken up residence in your house does not have that shape. It has no numbers and no end date. Anything that has no end date is not a plan, it is a position.

And a position spreads. Because it was never really about the amount, and so it applies equally to the large thing and the small thing. Which is why this family has also not had the cheap version. No day out, no afternoon, no two hours somewhere, and none of those were ever a financial question.

You are able to tell the difference between wisdom and a position, and years of careful refusals have never once proven which of the two this was. 1 Timothy 6:17 warns against a heart set on money rather than against money being spent, and the Spirit of God is what shows a man the shape of his own reasoning without condemning him for it.

And there is a cost sitting on the other side of this that does not show up in any account. Your children are learning what a family is from you. They are not learning to be careful. They are learning that gladness has to be earned and that the answer to wanting something is a reasoned no.

I am not saying that to wound you. You would rather know.

You have permission to change a position you took in good faith, and reviewing it now has never once made the years of carefulness a mistake. It is written that the living God gives richly for enjoyment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man reconsider something without treating his own past as foolishness.

Name one thing, and do it

So here is the assignment, and it is designed to be uncomfortable in one specific way.

Name one thing this family has been refused on principle. Then do that one thing.

Not the biggest one. One small one that you have said no to more than once, where the reason you gave was about values rather than about a number.

You are able to do one thing you have refused on principle, and doing it has never once undone a single careful year behind you. The Spirit of God goes with a man who acts against his own position in obedience rather than in indulgence, and 1 Timothy 6:17 has richly and enjoy sitting side by side in the text.

And do it without a speech. Do not explain to your family that you have been thinking about this. Do not make it a moment. Just do the thing, pay for it, and let it be ordinary, because a man announcing a change of heart makes his family responsible for managing his change of heart.

Then look at what it costs. Actually look. My guess is that the figure will surprise you by being smaller than the weight the refusal has carried, and that is worth knowing.

You are able to let one afternoon simply be paid for and enjoyed, and no part of that has ever once been you becoming a man who does not think ahead. 1 Timothy 6 sets the trusting against the enjoying rather than the saving against the spending, and the Holy Spirit is with you at the point of sale.