The Bible says that if we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord, and He will repay.  On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t say we are to hand out money to people who are chronic takers, and who live in expectancy that somebody else is going to provide for them.

There is a vast difference between a leg up and a hand out.  We should be eager to give anyone a leg up.  We really shouldn’t lend money to a person who has nothing, because that only puts him further in the hole.  We should give it to him, if it will really help him.  There are many people who have had some unfortunate thing happen in their life, and they are fighting their way back, and it is a joy to give to those folks.  On the other hand, there are people that no matter how much money you gave them, they would be back in a very short time with their hands out again.  Most of the time, those are the people who are smoking cigarettes, talking on cell phones, etc.  They are not the poor to whom the Bible says we should give.

God loves a cheerful giver, and we should aggressively look for avenues of proper giving.  But beware, their are those who have got ripping you off down to a science.

You may be thinking that your money has always been tight, but I am making reference to the tightness that comes when some unforseen event takes place and just turns your economic situation upside down.

The first thing to do is get a pencil and paper and get a visual look at where your money is going.  Most people will find some areas of fat that can be immediately trimmed, freeing up some money for more necessary expenditures.

If you see that there just isn’t enough money to pay the bills, immediately contact your creditors, tell them of your situation, and ask them if a rescheduling of payments is possible?  You may be surprised to find that many creditors will appreciate your approach and will be eager to work with you.

While you should be committed to paying everyone all that you owe them, it may be necessary to develop a priority list.  As a Bible believer, you need to know that God attaches some very definite promises to giving to the work of the Lord, so God should be at the top of your list.  Also, pay yourself something, in other words, save something, even if it is a very small amount.  God promises blessings on the obedient believers store house, so you need to have a storehouse that He can bless.  You have to have a place to live.  You could ride to town with a neighbor, or you could get there a lot of other ways, but you’ve got to have a place to live.  You have to eat.  You do not have to eat fillet Mignon, but you have to eat, so groceries get placed in the priority list.  Well, you get the idea.  Some things are more pressing than others.

Assess you situation.  What happened to cause you to be in this condition, beyond the obvious unexpected event?  In reality, we should always expect the unexpected, because the unexpected almost always happens.  Why not commit to establishing an emergency fund?  When an emergency comes, you will likely have to start all over, but that’s much better than finding yourself in a deep financial hole. 

Maybe you go to work, and you are told that your job is being dissolved, and you are past the age of finding jobs easily. Maybe the doctor gives you a jolting diagnosis, and you wonder if all your plans are dashed against the stones.  Maybe you had some big retirement plans, but you have seen your retirement account melt away in the adverse market.  The list could go on and on, because disappointments are varied and many, but the big question is, how do we rebound?  How do we recover the joy?

Some things just kind of take a piece of us with them, and there’s no use denying that, but we must learn how to keep living, and we must always seek after the highest quality of life possible.  As believers, we know that high quality life is in Christ, and in resting upon His promises, but it is also important to know that there are some practical actions that we can take to help us rebound more quickly.

First, don’t think that you shouldn’t rebound, or that you can’t rebound.  You should and you can.  A time of grief in the wake of loss is both normal and necessary, but but don’t cross the line into self-pity.  There are three things that you can do to get you back in the race of the living:  1) Find, believe, and confess the promises of God; 2) focus on the blessings that are in your life; and 3) busy yourself in some productive activity.

You will be knocked down, expect it.  You don’t have to be knocked out, believe it.

When children begin to “go with” that person of the opposite sex, they sometimes recklessly use the word, love.  But it’s not just children, adults are often confused when it comes to the subject of love.  I’ve had people, who have been married for a number of years say to me, “I thought I loved him/her, but I don’t.”

There is a distinction between being “in love” and being in love with the idea of being in love.  You can’t really love someone you don’t know.  You can feel a strong “chemistry” toward that person, but that’s not true love.  The movies, and many television shows, model sexual intimacy as a get aquainted method, and this adds to the confusion.  Dating is a time to get to know a person socially and emotionally.  Marriage is the setting to get know that person sexually.

It is wrong to explode and just go off on everybody, and it is harmful to repress it, but there is a healthy alternative, and that’s manage it.

Anger needs to be defined.  That may sound a bit silly, as most people think they know why they’re angry, but many times we fail to really address the root cause of our anger.  Words of anger toward those in our immediate family may be triggered by some minor thing, when our real anger is something that happened at work.  Is the anger we are feeling really anger, or is anger merely a substitue for some other emotion that we feel less comfortable expressing?

If we do have justifiable anger, then its expression needs to be properly expressed.  A good way to begin is to determine exactly what it would take for our anger to be resolved.  Would an apology from another person do it?  We may not be able to secure that, but at least, if we know what we’re after, we can approach it in a much more effective way.  A hostle attack on another person very seldom produces results that we really want.  On the other hand, expressing to the other person how we feel, as a result of whatever happened, may yield wonderful results.

Don’t be a time-bomb always ready to explode, and don’t simply repress your anger and carry it around with you.  It will soon become bitterness, may lead to depression, and it will eat you up.