Storms Of Life- Financial Series

The Storms of Life

Financial Storms

CCCAG July 7h, 2019

Scripture- Matt 6:25-34

Intro:

In the fall of 2012, I was taking a walk in the woods with the family and we brought our Labrador, Candy with us. Candy was having a great time running in and out of the river, getting all muddy, and chasing squirrels. As we walked, we came up on a tree that had fallen over the river, so the girls and I took turns walking across it. Candy was following us running under the tree and in the river, and on the way back across got tangled in some branches and mud. She was so thoroughly stuck as she couldn’t find a place to put a paw without it slipping. I climbed down the log into the branches and got ahold of her collar and was pulling on it to help her climb up. I was at a really weird angle and pulling across my body when her collar broke and I spun around. I should have just fallen off the log, but my foot was wedged between to branches and as I spun, I felt my left knee pop and immediately fell onto the log. I tried to stand and couldn’t put any weight on it at all without severe pain, so I knew I messed it up good.

I managed to hobble the mile or so out of the woods and went to the doctor the next day and one of his nurse practioner’s diagnosed me with a knee strain and gave me a week off work. It wasn’t a big deal as I had the vacation time and AFLAC covered some of the difference and after a week, my knee felt a lot better, although a little unsteady at times but I figured it was good enough for work. My first call back I slid across the bench seat to open the back door and my left foot caught in one of the cot wheels and it turned my leg sharply and I felt another pop. This time I could barely walk on it at all and it swelled up to the point of not even being able to bend it. I signed out of work and went back to the doctor’s office the next day and actually saw the doctor. He took me off duty until I got an MRI of my knee. The MRI showed several tears in the cartilage and my ACL ligament was torn completely apart. (brief explain).

I saw the knee specialist a week later, and he gave me a fairly grim prognosis- 4 to 6 months after surgery with physical therapy before I could even think about returning to work, and even then, my years of being a paramedic or firefighter might be over.

Couple that with workers comp being understandably hesitant to pay for an injury that seemingly began off duty, AFLAC being unwilling to supplement my salary or to cover an injury which occurred at work, and rapidly dwindling vacation time-

We had no money coming in at all. Tammie was a full-time homeschooling mom, so she had no paying job. We only had about $1k in savings at that point, and that was less than a month of expenses.

We were in a financial storm, and a storm that may take years to recover from if I had to go learn a different job.

It was a time of spiritual stretching for us.

During this time, one of the scriptures that God really spoke to me through this was found in Matthew’s Gospel, and was part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Let’s see what Jesus has to say about financial storms this morning-

Matt 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’