Money
We all have it, we all want more than we have, and yet it's amazing when we give it away! There was a song I learned (about friendship, actually) at camp when I was younger: "just like a magic penny, hold on tight and you won't have any--lend it, spend it and you'll have so many, they'll roll all over the floor." I am not preaching prosperity doctrine here, but in my own life I have seen God pour out blessings when we have chosen to give. Give away a bonus? Random check in the mail 2 days later--guess we paid too much on our car insurance and get some $$ back. Things like that have happened in our life over and over and over again. The biggest thing--we chose to move when God was calling us to move, even though it wasn't comfortable and it wasn't what we really wanted to do (and certainly wasn't something anyone else understood...but we felt God tugging so hard that we did it...). We moved to a much smaller house and gave more to God in the process--and he blessed us--with a new job for my husband, with negative test result for our son Isaac who was supposedly going to be in a wheelchair and never walk, and with another child, 1 year after we moved in (our sweet Noah!). And then--with an incredible selling price when we eventually needed to sell that house and buy another to make room for our expanding family.
Our human desire is to keep as much money as we can for ourselves. If I think hard enough, I could probably list at least 100 items we "need" or at least "want" to spend money on (you know, you've got those things in your brain--when we get more money we should paint the family room--or build shelves in that closet--or fix the deck--or a new pair of doc martins--you know!). These things don't get us anywhere in life and they certainly don't further God's kingdom!!! I don't think I can say that enough! Is it wrong to spend money on these kinds of things? No, not really...But where is our focus?? And where could the money be better spent? Whose is it, anyways? And where would He choose to use it???
