With an ever-tightening economic situation and no relief on the horizon for most of us, I was intrigued by a recent poll by the Washington Post which examined the ways in which faith influenced the lives of people under financial stress. So too were the editors of On Faith. They asked some of us what role faith played in our own responses to financial stress. I was surprised by how few people were willing to address the question from a personal perspective, opting instead for external analyses of other peoples’ lives. Not me. For better of worse, I offer here my own experience of how personal faith and personal finance affect each other.

For me, God is the presence to whom I turn, in painful or challenging situations, for total listening and loving. To be sure, wisdom, inspiration, challenges and even uncomfortable questions may follow. In fact, I believe that when divine guidance always confirms that which we already think, feel or believe, we need to admit that we not listening to God at all, we are just listening to ourselves.
When tough financial times, or times that are difficult for any reason, arrive, I locate the ability to pull myself together in the sense that we can all find greater comfort and purpose in life than we might immediately imagine. The channel for that insight is what I mean by faith, and the fact that it exists is what I mean by God.

Jewish tradition sometimes celebrates affluence (God’s blessing to Abraham), and questions its value at others (Ecclesiastes). There are times we are commanded to alleviate poverty and others when we are told to accept that it will be with us always (both passages are found in the same chapter of Deuteronomy). Ultimately, it seems that the message is to remain cognizant of the complexity of material wealth, both having it and not, and recall that coming down too hard on any one side of the issue is almost always a bad idea.

In whatever financial circumstances one finds oneself, my faith teaches me to keep in mind that there is always a bigger picture, a greater reality – just other ways of saying “God” – which we should bear in mind. When feeling materially poor, we can recall that there is always someone with less (I don’t like that the problems of others provide context for our own, but we all seem to experience that). When feeling wealthy, we should ask about the obligations that come with that blessing. And when feeling uncertain, we might remind ourselves that there is always more possibility and potential within us and in any given situation than we immediately perceive.