Cataracts pt 4

So in Chapter 26 in Dr. Strydom's book, which is available HERE , the 5th Principle deals with managing our finances with faithfulness. Reading this gave me goosebumps as I felt confirmation from the Holy Spirit that I'm following His leading. Back when the new year started I also started tackling our lack of financial faithfulness and made a plan that was Biblically sound. So reading the 5th Principle was a fabulous confirmation for me and very encouraging, giving me hope and desire to continue this journey, even when it's not easy. So lets take a look at the Faithfulness Principles, shall we? We are on page 478 in the book linked above. 1. HARD WORK. I will admit, I was a bit mindblown at the comparison between the Israeli's work day and our North American work days....I definitely need to change how I do this. If I worked hard during the daylight hours, I would definitely be ready to sleep as soon as the sun goes down! The problem is, I'm still asleep when the day is starting, and I'm allowing plenty of distractions to clutter up my work day, making it very inefficient! YIKES! 2. NO DEBT. So this is what I have started tackling actively since the 1st month of the year. This is something that will affect the whole family, and Jamie and I are in agreement that it is important to do. My prayer is that the remaining children at home will see the value is what we are doing. Working hard to get out of debt and learning to save for the things we think we need. 3. LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE A CIRCLE INSIDE A SQUARE. The idea is to first do your tithes, and live on the rest. We have been actively doing this since the beginning of the Sabbatical year in 2023 and have carried on doing it. There are many different understandings about tithes and I"m not going to really get into that here, but generally speaking we should be living on 80% of what we take home and the other 20% is a tithe, our family is doing this currently and in the 3rd and 6th year of the Sabbatical cycle we give to the orphans and widows as well. One thing that I learned from Dr. Strydom is the Terumah tithe....I need to look into this more as I've never heard of it before! I may need to tweak our tithing just a little bit though. We have been mostly faithful in our tithing, but the area we have been struggling with this year is setting aside for the Feasts. I have been so focused on getting out of debt that I need to shift a bit and work on trusting Abba more, we have been setting aside the Feast tithe money for covering our future income taxes....We will be praying long and hard this summer and follow Abba's leading regarding the money that we have been faithfully setting aside. Perhaps to be fully obedient, we will be required to use that set aside money as our Feast Tithe for Sukkot. Oh Abba I need to trust You more! 4. THE BEKURIM FIRST FRUITS OFFERING. This is another concept not widely practiced in our society, but as many of our fruit trees are coming up to their 4th yr...we need to honor this. It actually excites me to be able to bless those in ministry around me! 5. ENTERING HIS REST THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION.

When we don't have the faith to rest on Sabbath, because for example, we feel that we can't afford to rest as there is too much work to do - then it means we are not trusting Him to 'complete our work' - and are trying to do it in our own strength. However, our own works can only take us so far and there is only so much we can accomplish in our own strength - so as a result we reap the fruit of insufficiency and struggle financially. In response to that we try harder, strive more and are driven into performance in an attempt to experience some fulfilment from our work. The fear of failure and the fear of insufficiency robs us of our faith to rest, as we develop a false dependency on ourselves and a false sense of responsibility upon ourselves. As a result, the works of our hands are dead works - instead of works of faith. We won't reap His blessing because we are not applying His princeiples - and we give the enemy a legal right to rob us of a fruitful harvest from our work. The end result of all of this, is that we are put into a state of fear, anxiety and stress spiritually, psychologically and physically as a result of the enemy stealing, killing and destroying in the area of our finances - as well as stress related diseases from a lack of rest. The completion of our work is resting in Him because we know that only He can bring forth a harvest. Dr. Strydom Pg 485