I awoke from my sound sleep when I heard my husband plop into bed next to me. I peeked at the clock. 2:00 AM. I had already been asleep for several hours. The last thing I had heard was Tim typing on the computer on the dining room table.

When the morning came, Tim got up and ready for the day. Before 8:00 AM he was out the door and ready for his day job.

I was not worried about what he was doing in the middle of the night on the computer. I already knew. He was working on a computer programming job.

We had made a big tax mistake the year before and now we had a large, unexpected bill to pay. God provided by sending Tim this extra side job that would last a couple weeks. Day after day he worked all day then again at home into the middle of the night.

When the job was over, Tim received his paycheck in the mail and it was more than enough to cover the tax bill. God had provided! I talked with Tim about what to do with the rest and “we” decided to save it for an emergency fund. And by “we,” I mean, “I” decided. I was the one who did the budget and paid the bills.

The next day Tim came home with a new phone.

I grilled him about it. A new phone was not in the budget. He said he had traded in the old one. With my eyebrows lowered and my lips pursed, I checked our bank statement online. It had cost $200!

I was furious. After the kids went to bed I let him have it. Why did he think it was okay to buy a new phone! The old one was not broken. This was our chance to get ahead financially. Why did he blow it? And why didn’t he ask me first if he could get the new phone?

Tim normally doesn’t respond right away when I am on my financial planner soapbox. But this time he replied immediately. His answer knocked the wind out of my chest. He didn’t tell me because he knew I would act like this. And he had just worked so hard for weeks. He wanted to have a small reward after meeting our goal.

I wasn’t expecting that answer. He was right. He had worked hard. Tim never complained, not once, about being tired although I could see the exhaustion in his eyes. I knew if that had been me, I would have complained about being tired every chance I could.

Christian Marriage Money Fights

Any disagreement Tim and I have ever had over our sixteen years of marriage has been money related. As Dave Ramsey puts it, Tim is the free spirit and I am the nerd. Tim lives on a whim and wants to use money to have some fun. I am Ebenezer Scrooge who only wants to make financial progress and any fun should be free or planned far in advance, purchased with a discount coupon.

I took pride in verses from the Bible talking about the wisdom of saving and took that to mean that I was the more godly of the two of us.

Verses like:

Proverbs 21:5

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

and

Proverbs 21:20 (NLT)

A wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.

But about the same time as the phone incident, I noticed God has a heart of celebration.

God’s Heart of Celebration

In Leviticus 23, God outlines a variety of feasts that He wants His people to celebrate. These feasts cost money since the people were instructed to use some of their flock to offer to the Lord at the tabernacle. They also required vacation days. God wants people to budget time and money to celebrate.

Although the feasts in Leviticus 23 do not demonstrate using money for gifting yourself, they do show that God does not want us doing the hustle and grind every spare minute we can.

King Solomon in Ecclesiastes tried all. the. things to find happiness. He even tried only using his money for financial progress. Gather as much as he could. Hoarding it all in the bank. None of that gave him happiness.

Solomon’s conclusion?

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 (NLT)

Well, one thing, at least, is good: It is for a man to eat well, drink a good glass of wine, accept his position in life, and enjoy his work whatever his job may be, for however long the Lord may let him live.  And, of course, it is very good if a man has received wealth from the Lord and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and to accept your lot in life—that is indeed a gift from God. The person who does that will not need to look back with sorrow on his past, for God gives him joy.

By my miserly ways I was missing out on joy—joy from the Lord! Tim had worked hard and fulfilled his responsibility with providing for the tax bill. Then with the leftovers he had purchased something that had brought him joy.

Working Together with Wisdom and Joy

After looking at Scripture, I came back to Tim and told him those hard words: “I am sorry” and “you are right!”

After this we started to do our budget together and we budgeted a fun category where we could enjoy some of what God had given us. Because it was in the budget, my part was to actually enjoy the celebration or reward rather than inwardly gripe that we could be saving this money instead.

And Tim learned to stick to the budget so we are using a plan which is also the godly way to handle money.

Although it took some adjustments on both of our parts to work together, it was worth it. Money can be such a divisive issue in a Christian marriage, but it can also be the means of bringing a couple together and uniting them to live their lives in Godly wisdom and Godly joy.

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Rachel Schmoyer

Rachel Schmoyer writes at Read the Hard Parts to encourage and equip Christians to read the hard parts of Scripture. Rachel is a pastor's wife and mom of four from the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania.

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Latest posts by Rachel Schmoyer (see all)

• The Nerd and the Free Spirit: Surviving Christian Marriage Money Fights - February 11, 2019
• A Wise Woman Pursues Peace - May 15, 2018