Actions speak louder than words

What you do with what you have reveals what you believe.  Growing up I had a three ring binder that said this “Actions speak louder than words”.  At the time my adolescent mind could not understand the insight I carried to class each day.  I thought it was just a cool statement.  I also knew it was profound, but I could never fathom the wisdom of the ages tied up in that sentence.

In today’s’ age of nuclear information and expert explosions of statements there is never a shortage of words.  They abound more than mosquitoes in the bayou!  Yet what does seem to be missing are those pesky actions, the stuff that actually takes ideas into reality and develops the difference between intentions and veracity.  I think the majority of us live in an intentioned world.  We need to change that!

But changing things is hard and changing something for the long term is even harder.  Something needs to grab our attention.  Something like a vision of the future, a memory montage of the past or a cold hard slap of the present reality.

When it comes to finances I think we need all three, a stroll down memory lane with those wise older people that remember life before being racked with debt.  That knew it was wise to save and came up with phrases like “save for a rainy day”. 

We also need a slap to the financial face that wakes us up to see the present reality we are actually in.  When everybody says it’s smart to budget our money, get out of debt and save but the stats show the majority of American’s live paycheck to paycheck (over 55%).  That means we are not awake to the reality of our financial future.

And speaking of that future, we need to look hard at where we are going.  It does not take any level of education past 1^st grade to understand that you can’t spend more than you make.  But from the household all the way up to the government we are doing just that.  Numbers like overspending to the degree of 113% of our annual household income is insane!  But on the local level this is what we are doing.

Listen to a national news station about our government finances and you will hear phrases like “reducing” the deficit”.  What is that?  Simple it’s reducing the amount of spending more than we make.  Sounds good right?  Well not really because all we are trying to do is just REDUCE it!  There is NO talk of eliminating it, just managing the overspending. 

And each day, week, month and year we over spend we build our debt.  We are actively and aggressively building our countries destruction.  We are not building a better future; we are actually building a time bomb.  There is no action that eliminates the deficits (overspending) for good and there is no talk of paying back our debt, no!  Let’s not even go there, cause being in debt is normal.  Being a financial slave is the standard!  Well all of that is causing us to not just build the bomb but to rush its completion.

Yes I know it’s easy to blame the government, but that does not get us anywhere.  We must simply change!  We must invest in our future by investing in the way we do things.  We must save!  We must stop spending more than we make.  We must get out of debt!  And then demand our leaders do the same.

Here are some key questions I want you to consider:

1.  How are you handling your present finances, are you working on staying on a budget?

2.  What are you doing to handle your past, your debt that trails behind you?

3.  How are you investing for the future? What steps might you need to take to improve the way you invest?

4.  What long-term goals do you have for your financial life?  How are you progressing in accomplishing these goals?

5.  Do you consider yourself to be more of a spender or a saver?  Explain.

6.  Read Proverbs 6:6-8, 21:20, Thessalonians 3:10 and Matthew 25:14-30.  Share a time in your life when you learned about the importance of planning for the future.

7. What are some of the obstacles you’ve encountered that hinder your ability to invest for the future?