I Made Thrift A Doctrine

You do take them places. That is worth saying first, because this is not about a man who never goes anywhere.

You go. You drive, you plan it, you make sure everybody has what they need, and you bring the food from home in a bag, and there is a bottle of water each with the labels still on from the store.

And then the day happens, and it is a series of refusals.

Can we get one of those. No, we have got food. Can I have one of the things from the stand. We have got drinks in the bag. Can we go on the boat thing. Not this time.

Every one of those is affordable. That is what makes this different from the money row on this site. You could buy the thing. It is not that there is no money for it.

It is that buying it would be, in your understanding of yourself, wrong. Wasteful. The kind of thing people do who have not thought about what things cost. And you have thought about it, and you have built a whole way of being a father on top of that thinking.

I am not going to try to change your convictions about money. I am going to ask about one word, and where in the Bible it sits.

Eat the fat, and drink the sweet

There is an instruction in Nehemiah, given on a day when the whole nation was weeping, and it is the single most surprising command in that book.

Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10, King James Version)

You have a command in the written word to eat the rich thing on a particular day, and no amount of carefulness has ever once made that command somebody else's. Nehemiah 8:10 tells people to eat the fat and drink the sweet as an instruction rather than as a concession, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a careful man read that as addressed to him.

Sit with the words. Eat the fat. Drink the sweet. Those are not the words of somebody encouraging moderation. That is deliberately the rich thing and the sweet thing, named specifically, and it is a command rather than a permission.

And look at why. For this day is holy unto our Lord. The reason given for the fat and the sweet is holiness, which reverses the whole arrangement you have in your head, where the careful thing is the holy thing and the sweet thing is the indulgence.

You are able to read the glad thing as the obedient thing on a given day, and no year of thrift has ever once made that reading a compromise. It is written that they were commanded to eat the fat and drink the sweet because the day was holy, which is why gladness is the instruction rather than the exception, and the Spirit of God is what turns that over in a man who has had it the other way round for years.

And then the sentence in the middle that I would like you to notice, because it is aimed at exactly your temperament. Neither be ye sorry.

They were weeping. They had good reason to. And they were told, on that particular day, not to be sorry.

You are able to be told not to be sorry, and every good reason you have had for being careful has never once made that instruction inapplicable to you. The Holy Spirit is the one who can say neither be ye sorry to a man who has made sorriness a discipline, and Nehemiah 8 puts that sentence in the middle of the command about the fat and the sweet.

What the refusals are teaching

Now the practical part, and it is about what your children are learning, because they are learning something specific.

They are not learning to be careful with money. That would be a good outcome and it is not what is happening.

They are learning that pleasure is suspect. That a small good thing is something a serious person declines. And they are learning it from watching a man they respect refuse, over and over, in a place where everybody else is buying.

You are teaching them something with each refusal, and it has never once been the lesson about money you meant to teach. The Spirit of God is what shows a man the difference between what he intends and what is landing, and Nehemiah 8:10 commands the fat and the sweet on a holy day rather than commending restraint.

And here is the second thing, which is harder. There is a difference between a family that cannot and a family that will not, and children can tell.

A child who is told we cannot afford that receives a fact about the world. A child who is told we do not do that, in front of a thing that is plainly affordable, receives a fact about their father, and specifically about whether their wanting something is legitimate.

You are able to stop making their wanting the problem, and no small thing they have asked for has ever once been evidence about their character. It is written that the people were told to go their way and eat the fat, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man to see a child's ordinary wanting as ordinary.

I want to be clear that I am not asking you to say yes to everything. That would replace one position with another. The instruction in Nehemiah is for a particular day, not for every day, and that is exactly the point: the fat and the sweet belong to a day set apart, and a day out with your family is a day set apart.

Buy it, and put it in the middle

So here is the assignment, and it is specific because a general resolution will not survive the moment.

Buy the small glad thing on the next day out. Then put it in the middle of the table.

Decide before you leave the house. That is important, because in the moment your reflex is faster than your reasoning. Decide now: on this day, one thing gets bought, and it is the thing that has no purpose except pleasure.

You are able to decide in advance rather than fight a reflex in the moment, and deciding it beforehand has never once been you weakening a conviction you hold. Nehemiah 8:10 names a specific day and gives a specific instruction for it, and the Spirit of God is with a man making that decision in a kitchen before anybody is in the car.

Then buy it, and here is the part that does the work: put it in the middle. Not one each, handed out. In the middle of the table, or the blanket, or the hood of the car, for everybody, at once.

Because the middle of the table is where a household learns what a household is. Portions handed to individuals are provision. A thing in the middle is a feast, and a feast is what that verse is describing.

You are able to put something in the middle for all of them, and nothing about that has ever once been extravagance. It is written that they were told to send portions to those for whom nothing was prepared, which puts the sharing right in the same verse, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present at a table where something has just been set down for everybody.

And do it without a speech. No explanation about how you have been thinking about this. Just buy it, put it down, and let somebody else be the first to reach.