I was preaching this morning at the Shelter Church in Fort St. John, BC. My subject was faithfulness in financial stewardship.

I told the story of a friend of mine who had asked my assistance in helping better steward his finances. He had quit his job so as to pray five hours a day. He felt God had called him into a season where he was to live “by faith.” This meant he spent most of his time in spiritual activity such as prayer, worship, fellowship with other believers or witnessing to people on the street. He told me how God had provided for him miraculously. Groceries mysteriously appeared on his doorstep. Money arrived just as the City was about to switch off his power. He had lots of wonderful stories of what God was doing in his life. There was one problem though. He owed some people some money. His question to me was how I thought God would provide for these debts. After careful reflection and some encouraging words affirming God’s work in his life, I had to say. “I think God wants you to get a job!” His reply was “But that’s SO NOT FAITH!”

My friend had divided his world into a compartment which was labeled “FAITH.” It was the place where God provided miraculously and he had a constant sense of God’s presence. The other compartment was “NOT FAITH” where God was absent and he had to grapple with the everyday struggles that most people experience trying to make ends meet.

I contrasted this story with a story about a medical professional who I know. She is a competent, caring, compassionate physician. She had a patient who recently died suddenly of a heart attack. The patient had been into see her several days prior to the event. My friend had done a thorough examination but was not alerted to any potential catastrophic heart condition. When her patient died there was the question: Had she missed something? Could she have prevented the death? This was a very troubling question.

For a Christian at work, if they believe in a compartmentalized world where God is absent from the ordinary and only present in the extraordinary, they will be without comfort when they apparently fail, doing what they consider ordinary.

However, my friend, the Christian physician, knows that God is at work in ordinary medical examinations as well as the extraordinary miraculous interventions. God was sovereign over that event. If God wanted my friend to find the problem she would have found it. As much as my friend would like to have prevented it, it was time for her patient to go.

For us to be wise stewards of ordinary things like money, we must believe that God is present in our day to day financial decisions. We must consider our employment as His provision and not look down on it because of its ordinary appearance. Jobs, no matter how mundane, are as much a faith venture as prayer, worship and other forms of Christian ministry.

There is no part of God’s good creation that does not find Him present “for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17)