Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha
What are negative financial behaviors and what makes them
negative?
Negative financial behaviors are financial behaviors as well
as attitudes which always put your financial figures in red – that is to say
you are always financially stressed, financially insecure, financially dependent
on people and circumstances. You never have financial resources stashed away
for the rainy day and when there is a major or even minor need in your life,
you are always at the mercy of other people – begging without shame and most
times being ignored, or humiliated or even insulted. At other times, you have
to borrow, and in some cases with high interest rates and you borrow, you may
actually have no means of paying back the debts.
Gambling for instance is a major negative financial
behavior. Daily, weekly, monthly or as the case may be, gamblers lose money
playing the stakes in whatever form for high returns on money staked. Sometimes
and quite few, they win but most times, they lose and even the money won is
again ploughed into further bouts of betting.
Beloved, gambling puts a great toll on the financial
resources of individuals, families, institutions, communities and nations.
What makes them negative?
They bring shame, reproach and humiliation. A gambler who
constantly loses money at the stakes will eventually beg or borrow when e runs
out of money. He may be mocked, insulted, laughed at, scorned and humiliated and if such a person
is a parent, the children suffer the reproach, shame and humiliation; lose their
pride and self worth on account of the sneers which go with the negative
financial behavior of their parent.
Secondly, the children may think that begging for money and
borrowing of money are a way of life, so they never really make the effort to
earn living wages which will over time translate to sustainable wealth in the
family. When recourse to borrowing and begging become entrenched ways of life,
then such negative financial behaviors have become strongholds which should be
urgently dealt with by the word of God and the Spirit of God so that they are
completely destroyed from the lives of the individuals in the family. It is
pathetic to find bright minds, intelligent, smart and hardworking people who
spend a life time looking up to people to meet their financial needs. Sadly,
these bright minds, intelligent and smart people have the capacity to earn and
make tons of money; in point of fact, much more than the people they are
looking up to for financial assistance.
Unfortunately and this is very pathetic, the capacity is
latent, just as the tons of financial resources which translate into wealth is
latent; and in some cases, such people take the wealth to the grave as in the
case of the indebted prophet whose two sons would have gone into debt bondage
but for the timely intervention of their wise mother.
Beloved, begging and borrowing are negative financial
behaviors; they are not God’s will and way of life for any of His children.
Jesus Christ did not beg or borrow. The Apostle Paul earned his upkeep. When
the temple tax was required, Jesus instructed Peter on how to earn it – EARN IT
and NOT BORROW OR BEG FOR IT.
Herein is the crux of the matter. Most people who beg or
borrow do not think of how to earn the financial resources they require so they
beg for it and get insulted. They borrow and they are humiliated. A diligent
study of the Scriptures reveals that financial resources have to be earned
through a plethora of godly, honest income generating activities which range
from agriculture, preaching of the gospel, designing, soldiering, sewing and
knitting, buying and selling, dissemination of wisdom, you name it.
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