First paycheck!

My first paycheck came on Friday! :) It's a reassuring thing to know that I can pay rent for the next month! Before I received it, I had been thinking through my budget and asking Jesus how he wants me to use my income generously for his purposes and to provide healing and help and community for other people. Studying Jesus' words and actions in the book of Luke has been convicting me that if I have more resources than I need, it's unjust to hang onto them all for myself. And yet it's a funny thing that when I got my first paycheck and ran through my mind how to spend it, ME and my needs consumed pretty much all of it. Part of it is that I'm having to pay for everything I need now on a fairly slim budget, as my work is part-time and my savings are depleted, but I think that another part of it is that tendency to see our money and resources as ours for our benefit, not as resources that have been entrusted to us as part of a community and ultimately as belonging to God. It reminds me again that right living is much easier to conceive of theoretically and much harder for me to practice! Jesus, I need your grace!