In his famous and wonderful devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers warns “Do Not Calculate Without God”. So often we make our plans and neglect to honestly factor God and His will first and foremost in them.
By contrast Chambers lists three points in his devotional for July 5th (I was flipping through and came across it). First, the obvious, “Don’t calculate without God.” Second, “Don’t calculate with evil in view”; we know there is evil in the world, but we ought to live and plan in ways that don’t exhibit a guardedness because the world is evil. Third, “Don’t calculate with the rainy day in view.” It is this last one that I want to quote verbatim so you see his words, not mine:
You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ. Jesus said–”Let not your heart be troubled.” God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command–”Let not…” Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first, and calculating with Him in view.
What do you make of that? Is he talking about long-term or short-term or well, every-term? Does it exhibit disobedience and/or distrust by saving for a rainy day?
Jesus used parables of wise and unwise investors. Charles Spurgeon, in the 1800s, took some flack after he concluded from the Scriptures that to buy into that new financial vehicle of the time, life insurance and especially life insurance over 80 for the elderly, was actually not a sin but an acceptable form of providing for one’s family. Randy Alcorn and other believers who write about financial stewardship (and the late Larry Burkett before them all) also speak of the importance of building up a little savings whenever possible.
If anyone has knowledge of Chambers–his life or other writings–and would like to leave a comment, I’d be very interested to hear a fuller treatment of his thoughts on this, although to write “You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ” sure seems thought-provokingly plain.