I don’t usually expect any good spiritual advice from football coaches, but here’s an exception to that rule. These words from coach Joe Gibbs gives us some great advice–if we would only listen. Coach Gibbs said:
Have you ever noticed that a five percent raise doesn’t really change much in your take-home pay? Aren’t you just as hungry for breakfast the morning after a $50.00 meal as after a $5.00 one? How many of the items in your garage or attic once served a useful purpose inside your actual living space? And why do all of us know these things to be true?
Because we’ve seen them. We’ve lived them. If there’s one thing we know about money and the things it can buy, it’s the fact that we routinely overvalue them. We expect them to be so much more than they typically turn out to be. So God tells us in His Word to give “careful thought” to this: “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:6).
Don’t just know this. Do something with it.
What habits do you need to discontinue based on this common-sense information? How should this insight affect the way you parent or counsel your children? What kind of character traits would have more room to grow in you if you based more of your decisions on this? When money lessons become life lessons, they can do more than just impact your shopping and saving patterns. They can go to work in your heart.
Pray this prayer: Father, I pray for the wisdom to be more thoughtful than I usually am—to base my life on the truths you’ve so clearly shown us, rather than acting like they don’t apply to me. (Scripture references changed to KJV).
That’s pretty good preaching, even if it does come from a football coach. If you want to win in life listen to the coach! THINK ABOUT IT!
