BFJN recently shared a new resource called Generous Living Foundations. This video series invites us to consider what it looks like to follow Jesus with our money. We work through some basic financial literacy topics such as getting out of debt and investing alongside and with the framing of biblical teachings on wealth and spending. I think each of the 13 videos are valuable and important but I confess I do have a favorite – Finding Enough.

Enough is a topic I have canvassed in blogs before and if you know me well we’ve probably had at least one “enough’ conversation. I was so glad Andrew talked about this concept as well in his most recent blog.Definitely check that out!

I think that enough is a concept we struggle with as Americans. The American dream seems to be about more – acquiring more, achieving more, being more. The idea that we might have enough already feels foreign. But I believe that finding our enough, determining our enough, is essential to stewarding our resources in a Godly way.

What does it mean to find enough? Whether with money, clothes, vacations, home décor – anything – if we don’t determine what is enough we will likely never believe we have enough (Jon Acuff articulated this so well in his book Quitter). This is absolutely a lesson I continue to learn and re-learn – I am not talking as someone who has figured it out, but someone who is very much in the process.

I first began to understand the need for defining enough many years ago. I got married after my second year of law school. I worked part time and my husband was a mechanic (still is – he can fix anything!). Financially, we did not have a lot. All of our needs were met, but there wasn’t much left over. We had a budget where after we paid our bills, we saved a little and gave a little away. After I graduated and started working full time our income was significantly higher. However, we didn’t adjust our budget for some time. This wasn’t an intentional choice it really just didn’t occur to me. We still paid our bills, saved and gave away the same amounts as before. That extra income? Initially we just spent it. We ate out more, bought more things for the house and honestly I don’t know what else. Finally one day as I was paying our credit card bill I started to see how our spending simply rose to meet our income. We had never decided what our enough was when it came to spending generally or for any specific thing we had or did.

In the following years we became more intentional about our budget and planned for enough around both saving and spending that would still apply with any further increases in our income. Of course when we had kids this all changed, as our needs and wants changed with becoming parents, but after some fits and starts we got back on course again. We are now entering the college phase which requires more adjustment and trial and error, but what we try to keep front and center is Enough. Establishing what that looks like for us so that we are not mindlessly pursuing more for the sake of more and so that our plenty, our abundance, can be freed up to meet the needs of others.

I challenge all of us seeking to steward our resources to reflect God’s love for the world to consider what our enough is.