Budgeting as Worship

This is not an uncommon response. A CNBC article titled “People hate budgeting” spotlighted a financial professional who observed that over 60% of her clients felt as though they were “literally going to suffer” at the mere mention of budgeting.

With so many feeling frustrated by budgeting, is budgeting as worship just an empty phrase?

King David is not giving everything away but is in a process of strategically allocating his resources to meet his goals. This is budgeting. For King David, this budgeting process was a crucial tool to help him build the temple, which was going to help people worship God.

And this applies to us as well.

Like King David, we are all royalty, literal sons of the King of the Universe. And our bodies are God’s Temple since Jesus Christ dwells in us. The better we get at budgeting, the more we are raising up God’s Temple to help others worship God.

How does that work, practically? As we learn to spend less than we earn and avoid debt with our budgeting, we become more generous. This, in turn, is a service that “overflowing in many thanksgivings to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12). That is something to get excited about!

William Wilberforce, who led the movement to abolish the slave trade, understood this when he said, “By careful management (i.e., budgeting), I should be able to give at least one-quarter of my income to the poor.” As William Wilberforce engaged in his spending plan and tracking of his expenses, he was doing the same thing as King David: building a beautiful place on this earth for God to dwell, resulting in glory to God as increased resources were directed towards the poor.

In summary, budgeting is devotion and worship of Jesus, since it frees up resources that you can use to love others by meeting their material needs as well as their spiritual needs, resulting in more worship to God.