Money Talk: For Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also

My most prized treasure

Gosh, I haven't been posting much. I've been so disorganized from the months since I gave birth and I can literally feel the weeds growing in my soul.

Speaking of weeds, that's what hubs and me were talking about last night. Thursdays are our quality time, by the way. It was one of the fewer times we talked about money in a positive and productive way. And I shared with him my most recent experience with tithing and my own behavior. Seems like for the past week all I do is prune, prune, prune.

So it all started when I decided to invest the Money Lover premium app on a lazy afternoon (one of those when I nest on the sofa while the baby is napping, scrolling and scrolling my phone endlessly to avoid all problems) to keep track of everywhere our money goes, except for the tithing commitment I made to myself. And just like that, out of nowhere I received this enduring energy to clear up our space, reorganize everything, design a garden plan for our balcony, cook every day and night, give more pocket money for the nanny and helper, do the night shift without help on continuous nights, found untapped resources for my little business on the side, and still have daily facials in-between. Plus in my free time, all I can think about was, Hmmm, how can I give away this much? What can I do with this amount of money? Instead of I want this, I want that, but I don't have enough. I was actually becoming more productive with my finances and I brought along the productivity into important areas of my life.

It seems like the Matthew 6:21 verse For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also is speaking directly to me.

While money is not my sole treasure, I believe it is the primary vehicle for mobilizing various aspects of life. And once you've stored the most important treasure first before everything else, God immediately fulfills His promise to take care of the rest himself. It's not just a simple subtraction from your wallet, but more of a multiplication from the amount of heart you give in. And I'm glad to embark upon this transformational journey that shoots me from the self-validation mindset, which is nothing but a prison, to one that focuses on other people more.

Someone once said to me that there are two types of people: On the one hand there are those that think the world is made up of people who can make it and people who can't. On the other, there are the rare people who believes there are only people who can help and people who cannot help. I highly suspect God is trying to change me from the first to the latter with this "treasure management" experience ...

The next challenge? I think it's going to be time management ... which is probably way harder ...

Anyway, thanks for reading :) I hope this post inspires you one way or another.

Dear C: Love is Not a Single-Celled Organism

Way before our marriage, mommy asked daddy an important question that's going to determine the love that's going to cement the foundation of our family: 

Can we just be together and not give a care about the world?

Mommy already knew the answer. The answer is, of course, a no, albeit a sympathetic one. 

Why, my dear? Why do you have to give a care about the world around you, especially when you're currently placed in a situation or an environment where you feel like you don't quite fit in?

The simple answer is because you are living in it.

Look around you. You are blessed with the roof over your head and the meals on your plate and the clothing you are putting on right now. Where do these resources come from? The world. The people around you. Your neighbours, your friends, even your enemies.

Yes, mommy and daddy are the ones providing them all for you. But we aren't carpenters or cooks or dressmakers. We aren't it all, we can't do it all, and we're definitely not perfect. 

I know it hurts. The last thing you want to do is reach out to the one who hurts you in vulnerability, even when you've done no wrong. But love lives not in isolation but in relationships. We need the people around us to work together so that important things can get done, even when we don't always like it.

Look at Father. He gave his only Son to the world, who is the most precious part of himself, so that those who believe in His Love and his sincerity will live. 

What if Jesus never finished God's plan while he was on earth? We will still be perpetually fighting our inner demons by ourselves, for ourselves, not giving two cents about the people around us ... and without realizing it, we're on the road to self-destruction. He took it all out on himself in victory.

So remember this: To love is to give. A mature response to loving people and hateful people is to equally act in their best interest. It is not your responsibility to make them love you back, nor it is your responsibility to justify yourself, or to convince others into believing in your story and embracing your uniqueness. That is a job fit only for the creator of the world.