It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.

George W. Bush

I've watched with a combination of fascination and disgust, the budget shenanigans perpetrated by congress throughout the years, but I don't worry about it anymore. My advanced training as a classic economist tells me that the ship for fiscal sanity has long sailed. I'm not overly happy about it, mind you, I just don't give our budget anymore thought than I give to my favorite dog when I was a kid - both are long gone!

While it's easy for us to see the futility of our congress arguing over their budget, we nearly always give ourselves a pass when it comes to the more important area of how we budget our time for the Lord. If we were honest, we would all have to admit that we are sometimes imprudent in the way that we handle the precious hours that God gives us each day. Isn't it funny how we are reluctant to spend more than 5 minutes in our Bible because, "We just don't have the time", but we watch 3 hours of T.V. a day as if there were no limits to our time.

Sometimes we even "borrow" from the future, promising ourselves that we will go to worship next week, in exchange for a day off this week. Or, perhaps, that we will really will read our Bible and pray more tomorrow, but not today. I wonder if God does not sometimes wonder at my lack of budgeting skills when it comes to planning my service to Him.

The fact is that the debt that we owe our Lord is far more than we can ever hope to repay. Christ really did give His life as payment for our sins, and we can never pay back the debt of love that we owe Him. We can, however, begin to seriously consider how to spend our time more wisely for the Master. The great thing about a good budget is that we nearly always have something extra left over to spend on things that we really need. It's true for congress in the way they spend our money, and it's true for us in the way that we spend God's time.

How... are your budgeting skills?

For it is time to seek the Lord...    

Hosea 10:12