Dear Daniel,

The financial markets look ambivalent in their downward course, towards the individual investor.  The once booming housing market is caught in a catch-22 where its no longer creating jobs that create down payment income for those purchasing houses.  Age old financial institutions are failing because of too much focus on the short term and not enough focus on the long term and incomprehensible amounts of money are being thrown around as solutions to save the current way of life that might not have been so great in the first place.

So what is your responsibility while you have a decent income?  Is it your responsibility to max out the 401k? Is it your responsibility to max out your investments to take advantage of the value-sales in the falling market?  Is it your responsibility to give up the position you’ve been given to go do something that might align more with your latest interest?  Or is your responsibility to continue on the course and do your best in your current situation, job, career.

Times are getting harder… for all of us.  And friends will probably have more of a difficult time raising funds so they can continue to do their work.  Church giving will probably decrease as more and more people have less to give.  Maybe you can think positively and hope that as the times get harder, the value of life and things eternal will raise in importance and the that the urgency of funding necessary projects will be a positive motivator.  But probably not, at least initially.  By the way, you should pray more for those things of God’s heart to raise in importance in your life.

So what do you do?  Do you give up the funds to follow a dream that might just be an veiled alternative to your current predicament.  Doing that really seems to effect those around you.  Or do you push forward and keep the focus off yourself.  Are funds really that important?  Guilt from an imposed responsibility certainly seems to say so.  God provides, God sustains, God will take care of your friends and he will take care of you.  Is this what freedom is Christ means?  To be free from the heavy yoke of feeling the need to provide the money for your friends who are ministering, to provide for your church in its ministry, and to provide for your family?

A few weeks ago Jenn asked two ideas of you both.  “Life is too short to spend doing something we do not believe in or enjoy” and “We should never become too comfortable so that we choose comfort over risk in the face of necessary change.”  You both really want to live like that.  So start.