Day 2: 7 Steps to Align Your Finances with God and Your Spouse

Peacemaker

If you want to experience healing, be the first to confess, and the first to say, “I’m sorry!” Think of your spouse as your teammate, locked arm-in-arm with you, fighting on the same team and for the same end goal. Quit attacking each other and instead, work together to attack your financial challenges.

Pray for peace in your marriage, and actively choose to be the peacemaker. If one of you is a peacemaker, your marriage will survive. If both of you commit to becoming peacemakers, then your marriage will thrive!

Prosperity

God’s plan for our prosperity includes marriage. It is not despite marriage. Of course, God can bless those who don’t marry. But you and I should see our spouse and family as a key part of living a prosperous life.

God’s plan is not centered around bigger, better, faster, newer, or nicer. It is centered around a step-by-step method found in Jeremiah 29:4-11.

Purpose

What is the purpose of your marriage?

Most individuals, myself included, know that they want to get married and have kids, but can’t explain the purpose behind doing so. Let me encourage you – God has a very specific purpose for your life and marriage. Regardless of your occupation, income, or social standing, God has called you and your spouse to give your utmost for His highest glory.

Unless you live with purpose, you’ll live in danger of achieving nothing of eternal value.

Philosophy

Whether or not you know it, both you and your spouse have a philosophy about money. You form it through your life experiences, preferences, thoughts, and personalities. Your philosophy is bound to be different from your spouse’s and can cause frustration and disunity. But God’s transformational power provides an advantage for two to become one regardless of your personalities, background, or annoying habits. Develop a Biblical philosophy of money with your spouse!

Personality

Remember that you and your spouse are on the same team. And on any team, you have to use your teammates' strengths to help you win. Especially if their strengths happen to be your weaknesses.

The same goes for our marriages. I am the spender and my wife is the saver. For years we butted heads over financial decisions. But when I understood and accepted her personality, especially with money, it enabled us to begin to work together!

I don’t know what the dynamic is like in your marriage, but if you and your spouse are opposites, be encouraged! Crown’s founder, Larry Burkett, used to say, “If you’re both the same, one of you isn’t necessary.” Don’t try and change your spouse to think and feel the same way you do. Use each other’s strengths and differences to attack your financial challenges together.

Plan

Once you have worked through the first 5 P’s, you are ready to make a plan.

I hope that the plan you develop won’t just help your finances, but will help you to fulfill the purpose God has for your life and marriage, will be aligned with Scripture, and will lead you to achieve your financial goals.

Process

Now that you’re working on a plan to succeed, you need a process to keep your plan moving forward, even when a setback occurs.

I’ve found it’s helpful for couples to put themselves either in charge of the offense – scoring the points, earning income – or defense – keeping a budget, paying the bills. It will take both your efforts to make a comprehensive process and in some cases one spouse may be more gifted at both the offense and defense. You still need to find an effective process that works for your marriage. We have several recommendations in our book, Money Problems, Marriage Solutions.