Source: Good Sense Team, goodsensemovement.org
If you’ve ever sat down to make a budget and ended up in an argument, or made a purchase and then wondered why, you already know the feeling. Money is hard. Ask anyone — a single parent stretching a paycheck, a couple who can’t agree on a vacation budget, a retiree wondering if they saved enough — and you’ll hear some version of the same sigh.
We usually explain that sigh one of three ways. Money is hard because there’s never enough and we’re constantly struggling to keep up. Or it’s hard because it’s complicated, with taxes, interest rates, inflation, and all kinds of investment accounts. Or it’s hard because it’s just a necessary evil and we need to avoid getting tangled up with it as much as possible.
But money isn’t really that complicated – spending, saving, and giving are all pretty basic and the math of balancing our bank account isn’t hard. And money isn’t evil in and of itself – we see many examples in Scripture of money being put to good, God-honoring use. And while we’d all agree that having a bit more of it would make some things easier, most of us would also have to admit that we have more of it now than we did a few years ago. So why is money hard?
Reason #1: Money Competes for Our Allegiance
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
— Matthew 6:24
The first reason money is hard is that it competes with God for our allegiance and our worship. Jesus put it bluntly: “You cannot serve both God and money”. That’s not a warning about budgeting poorly — it’s a warning about worship. Jesus could have identified anything as the chief rival to God for our hearts. He identified money.
Paul agrees, linking greed with idolatry (Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5). Money vies for our worship and as such, attempts to become a rival god.
Scripture is full of examples of this conflict. After the defeat of Jericho, an Israelite named Achan coveted some of the plunder devoted to destruction, and took it, hiding it in his tent (Joshua 7). In a similar way, Ananias and Sapphira sold land and lied about the price they got for it, bringing just some of the money to the apostles. Solomon was led astray by his foreign wives and by the accumulation of wealth, which was forbidden to the king (Deuteronomy 17:16; 1 Kings 10:26-28). His insatiable desire for wealth led him to tax the people heavily, eventually resulting in the division of the kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 12). A rich young man sensed the emptiness of his obedient life and approached Jesus asking what was needed in order to inherit eternal life. But when he learned what it would cost him – his wealth – he went away sad, unable to part with that to which he had really given his life. Paul lost a close companion to love of the world (2 Timothy 4:10).
Money is hard because it vies for our allegiance.
Reason #2: Money Is Deceptive
“The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.”
— Matthew 13:22
Money deceives us. It promises meaning, but fails to deliver (Ecclesiastes 5:10). It promises security, but in the end it’s uncertain (1 Timothy 6:17). It makes us think it has lasting, ultimate value, but it’s only temporary (Luke 12:16-20).
Money blinds our eyes to our need for God, because in the short term, it looks like money can meet all our needs. Jesus, commenting on his encounter with the rich young man, noted that it’s extra hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:23).
On top of this, we’re tempted to think that money comes to us through our own labor and skill, when these have actually come from God (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). Money can make us proud and subtly cause us to value our own skill over God’s provision.
Money is hard because it’s deceitful.
Reason #3: Money is More Emotional Than Logical
We treat money like a math problem, one we can solve by getting the numbers right – and then we’re baffled when the numbers don’t behave. The thing is, a spending plan can be arithmetically sound and still fall apart, because most financial decisions aren’t made in the logical part of the brain at all — they’re made in the emotional part.
When we make impulse purchases (and most of us do this more than we’d care to admit), we’re not purchasing something we planned to buy. By definition, an impulse buy is something we haven’t carefully thought out – and that means it wasn’t in the spending plan.
Impulse buys aren’t made based on rational calculation — they’re made because of a bad day, a stressful conversation, boredom, or envy, and the purchase was medicine, not math. Impulse spending is rarely about the item. It’s about the ache we’re looking to fix. Until we’re honest that money decisions run through the heart before they run through a calculator, we’ll keep being surprised that “just budget better” doesn’t fix everything.
Money is hard because it’s emotional.
Reason #4: Money Motivations and History Run Deep
Underneath our spending and saving habits runs a current most of us have never named and probably don’t even realize. Four core motivations — Freedom, Security, Power, and Love — quietly steer our financial choices. None of them is inherently good or bad; they’re simply revealing. The one who saves compulsively is likely motivated by security and often driven by fear. The one who spends freely on friends is likely motivated by love (and looking for it in the wrong places).
These motivations come from somewhere. They’re shaped by the homes we grew up in — whether money was scarce or plentiful, whether it was spent freely or saved compulsively, whether it was discussed openly or in hushed, anxious tones after the kids were in bed. We inherit financial reflexes the same way we inherit accents, long before we’re old enough to evaluate them. That’s emotional freight we didn’t choose to carry, and it’s part of why the same financial advice lands so differently on two different people.
Money is hard because our underlying money motivations are rarely examined, acknowledged, and accounted for.
Reason #5: Money Is Individual
Scripture is full of financial wisdom — over 2,000 verses touch on money and possessions — but it gives principles, not a ruleset or a spreadsheet. That’s a feature, not a gap. It means faithful stewardship can look different from household to household, which is exactly why financial advice so often feels like it doesn’t quite fit our individual situations.
Picture two families, both walking with God. One is gifted in hospitality and owns a larger home than they strictly need, using the extra space to host neighbors and occasionally house people in crisis. Another lives simply in a smaller home and gives generously to missions overseas. Both are living out the same call to generosity — it just looks very different. It’s tempting to compare our financial picture and our practice of stewardship with others, but this is always a trap. We’ll end up judging others or ourselves for different financial decisions.
Money is hard because it’s individual, looking different for each person and family.
Reason #6: Money Exposes Relational Differences
It’s been said that fights over money are the number one contributor to marital breakdowns and divorces. But these fights are rarely really about money. We’ve mentioned the emotional nature of money, the underlying money motivations and family financial histories, and the fact that we all relate to money a bit differently. Now, consider the impact of all those below-the-surface factors on a married couple.
Put two people with different money motivations and histories in the same household, and money becomes the arena where deeper differences play out. One spouse saves compulsively; the other spends freely. Neither understands why the other “doesn’t get it.”
Underneath the argument about the credit card statement is usually a disagreement about what money is for — freedom, security, love, control — shaped by two different upbringings that were never actually discussed. Left unspoken, those differences don’t go away; they just keep surfacing as the same fight about something that looks financial but is really about two different sets of assumptions about life.
Money is hard for married couples because of the differences in financial backgrounds and assumptions.
Reason #7: Financial Decisions Mask Underlying Priorities
Not every hard money decision is really about money. But often, we approach these decisions as purely financial ones. A career change, a decision about where to live, whether to take the promotion that means more travel — these look like financial choices, but they’re really decisions about what kind of life we want to live.
We often disguise these decisions from ourselves with phrases like “I have to” or “we can’t afford that.” We feel locked in by circumstances or by past decisions. And we fail to examine the assumptions we’re making when we make financial decisions. As a result, we feel trapped and don’t consider altering our decisions.
Money is hard because the underlying priorities and assumptions go unexamined, and fear of change keeps us stuck.
Reason #8: Life Decisions Carry Financial Weight
Most major life decisions have significant financial implications. And some of those decisions can lead us into financial bondage. The out-of-state university with the beautiful campus attracts our high school student, who dreams about life there without considering the financial implications of repaying large student loans at the same time as they’re at the lowest earning point in their entire career and may be looking to start a family. The possibility of a move across the country for a better job and more congenial lifestyle causes us to overlook cost-of-living considerations.
Often, we look at these life decisions in isolation, not considering them as part of a whole – even though they all have to fit into the same income. Our desire for a private school education for our children and our commitment to having one spouse stay at home both have financial implications, but we often think of these decisions individually and not as part of a holistic set of lifestyle choices. As a result, we think we can afford each one – when in reality, we may not be able to afford the combination.
Money is hard because financial realities set boundaries on our dreams, and we’d rather dream freely without thought of financial consequences.
Reason #9: Setbacks Compound the Struggle
Just when a spending plan starts to feel manageable, something unexpected happens — a job loss, a medical bill, a market downturn — and it can feel like all the progress evaporates overnight. Stewardship is not a straight line up and to the right – we experience peaks and valleys, some shorter and some longer.
Jesus said that we would face trouble in this world (John 16:33) and James echoes this thought (James 1:2). These statements were originally made in the context of persecution, but they apply to all kinds of troubles we face. Both the wise builder and the foolish builder in Jesus’ closing parable in the Sermon on the Mount faced storms (Matthew 7:24-27). The question isn’t whether we will encounter setbacks; rather, it’s how we will respond.
Money is hard because we face setbacks, and our responses to these setbacks often compound the difficulty.
Reason #10: Money Myths Hide the Truth
As if all these obstacles weren’t enough, cultural myths and false teachings about money confuse us and blind us to the truth.
“Consumer debt is expected and unavoidable.”
“A little more money will solve our problems.”
“Give to God, and he will increase your riches.”
“How we handle money doesn’t matter; God cares about our hearts.”
From both outside and inside the church, wrong thinking and teaching about money obscures our path.
Money is hard because of the myths surrounding it.
Navigating the Obstacles of Wealth
No wonder money feels hard! Even well-meaning believers can be steered off course navigating around one or more of these obstacles. How can we respond in a way that honors God and fulfills his purposes for the wealth he has put in our possession?
Seeing the obstacles is necessary, but it’s just the first step. Money is like a river – it has a current. And that current will steer us away from God and into these obstacles if we let it. The key to navigating these obstacles present is more than just a set of steps to follow – it’s a framework of beliefs and stewardship practices.
Comprehend God’s Truth
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
— Psalm 24:1
We need to start where the trouble starts: with who actually owns what. Scripture is blunt about this — God owns everything, and we’re stewards, not owners. In the parable of the talents, a master entrusts his servants with resources and expects an accounting when he returns (Matthew 25:14-30). That’s the arrangement we’re all working under. Everything in our hands — the paycheck, the house, the retirement account, even the skill that earned all this — is a gift, not an achievement. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17), and even our ability to generate wealth traces back to God (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).
That single mindset shift from ownership to stewardship changes everything downstream. If it’s all his, then we’re not managing our money — we’re managing his, and one day we’ll give an account for how we’ve managed it (Romans 14:12; 1 Corinthians 4:2). Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:15-21). He had spent his life focused on himself, hoarding wealth in order to take it easy in his later years (sound familiar?). Deceived by wealth, he thought of himself as an owner rather than a steward.
This isn’t a truth we settle once. It’s a posture we return to — daily choosing to serve the owner rather than the resources he’s loaned us.
Connect With Personal Truth
Once we’re clear on God’s truth, it’s time to turn the same honesty toward ourselves. Analyzing our money motivations and our family financial backgrounds is a key step. How much do we value freedom, security, power, and love? How are these values impacting the way we handle money? And how do our motivations and backgrounds differ from those of our spouse?
Once we understand this, it’s time to develop a blueprint of priorities and non-negotiables. These aren’t vague aspirations like “I want to manage money better” but specific values, such as lifestyle and career, giving priorities, relative importance of saving and debt, and more. Some of these will likely be in conflict and will require assessing the relative importance of each one.
Married couples should go through this exercise first on their own, then together. Money rarely divides a household because the math doesn’t add up — it brings division because two people are quietly pursuing two different sets of priorities, two different definitions of “enough”. Building awareness of each other’s motivations and backgrounds helps couples understand each other and the reasons behind certain priorities, and developing shared priorities helps a couple get on the same page financially. Once these foundations are built, it’s much easier to work together on the next step – developing a spending plan.
Motivations and priorities are key aspects of our truth – but there’s one more element to consider. That element is the reality of our financial history. We got to where we are because of our income and spending patterns. Naming and understanding those patterns is a key step toward financial freedom. One reason that money can be hard is that we don’t really know where it’s going. Tracking and categorizing our income and expenses is a critical step toward getting control of our finances.
Create a Truth-Based Plan
Once we understand our truths (and our spouse’s), it’s time to build a spending plan. And let’s face it, creating a spending plan can feel hard. After all, we can spend a dollar only once, and we generally have more things we’d like to spend on than we have dollars to spend. As a result, a spending plan feels like restriction because it forces us to face reality.
But actually, the spending plan creates freedom – freedom to spend according to the priorities we’ve determined. A spending plan isn’t a cage that keeps us in bondage. It’s more like the steering wheel on a car, allowing us to control the direction we’re headed.
We’ve already defined a framework of truths that should form the foundation for our spending plan:
God’s truth (Biblical principles)
Our truth (money motivations, backgrounds and personal priorities)
Historical truth (what we’ve actually been spending)
Realistically, creating a spending plan will likely take a few attempts. The first one almost never balances out. It can be easy to focus on balancing the income and expense numbers (after all, they do need to balance!), but it’s important to remember the three sets of truths above as we do that. It’s possible to create a spending plan that balances but doesn’t reflect either our priorities or God’s truth – such a plan will feel restrictive rather than freeing.
As part of the plan, we need to determine what to do with increase – the windfall income we might get from tax refunds or bonuses, the raises that will likely come over time, etc. Without a plan, windfall income tends to be spent on things that don’t reflect our true priorities and raises tend to be absorbed into lifestyle spending without intentionality. Making a plan – even if it needs to be adjusted later – helps us steward wisely God’s extra blessings.
Choose Wise Responses
A plan will still meet a world full of variables we can’t control — and how we respond to those variables matters as much as the plan itself. Three important choices can help keep us on the path of stewardship.
Growth Over Guilt
When we blow the plan (and most of us will at some point!), it’s important to choose growth over guilt. Part of this is asking key questions like:
What were we reaching for when we overspent?
Was there a better way to achieve what we were attempting to achieve?
Could we have delayed that gratification?
What will we do the next time we encounter similar triggers?
God’s grace covers our mistakes – but it’s important to realize them, to confess them, and to ask for God’s wisdom to learn from them and his strength to avoid them in the future.
Agency Over Victimization
It’s tempting to think of ourselves as victims of circumstances beyond our control. And we all experience setbacks we could not have foreseen. We can’t always control what happens to our finances, but we can control how we respond and how we prepare for what’s next. Responding to setbacks is an important part of stewardship. The setbacks will come, but we have agency in how we respond and in how we prepare.
For example, we can’t control a job loss due to a downturn in business. But we can control how prepared we are for that job loss. If we’ve spent all we’ve earned and even accumulated a bit of debt, job loss can be a real problem. But if we’ve saved in preparation for an unexpected emergency, such an event doesn’t have to be a crisis.
Part of choosing agency is honestly evaluating our own contributions to our setbacks. This isn’t comfortable but it is empowering. If we’ve made bad decisions that led to financial issues, then the good news is that we can avoid those issues in the future by simply making better decisions. Choosing agency isn’t about guilt – it’s about taking responsibility and making positive changes when appropriate.
Faith Over Discouragement
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
–John 16:33
Jesus said these words to the disciples in the context of predicting their grief over his death. But experience tells us that there’s a much wider application. Stuff happens — a layoff, a diagnosis, a market that won’t cooperate.
Job experienced more hardship than most of us ever will. He didn’t pretend things were going great – he gave voice to his suffering and his discouragement. And yet in the midst of all that, he stood firm in his faith, declaring that his redeemer lives and ultimately will overcome all (Job 19:25). This is the kind of faith that Jesus encouraged in the Sermon on the Mount, urging us to seek God’s kingdom and trust him to provide for our needs.
And when the worry creeps in anyway, it’s time to choose prayer with thanksgiving over the downward spiral of anxiety. Paul’s prescription is specific: don’t be anxious, but bring it to God with a grateful heart, and let his peace do what our own calculations never could (Philippians 4:6-7).
Consider Our True Citizenship
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
— Philippians 3:20
As context for all of this, we need to consider the big picture. However hard money gets, however carefully we plan, this isn’t our true home. Peter reminds us that we are aliens and strangers here (1 Peter 2:11), and the writer to the Hebrews confirms that this is the stance that people of faith have always taken (Hebrews 11:13-16). Jesus told his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled, because he was going ahead to prepare a place for them that isn’t this one (John 14:1-4).
This truth changes our focus. Paul tells us to set our minds on things above, not on the things of this earth (Colossians 3:1-4) — the same instruction Jesus gave when he warned against storing up treasure that moths and rust can reach, and pointed us instead toward treasure that lasts (Matthew 6:19-24). And when our bank balance starts to feel like the whole story, we need to remember Jesus’ quiet warning that “worldly wealth” was never the real currency to begin with — it’s a tool for practicing faithfulness with something small, so we can be trusted with what’s true and lasting (Luke 16:10-12).
None of this makes money irrelevant — it makes it lighter. We don’t have to white-knuckle our way through every financial decision as if this life is all there is. We are citizens of somewhere else, just passing through, stewarding what’s in our hands for a little while on behalf of a kingdom that isn’t going anywhere.