Financial Bondage = Too much savings??

In the last post we talked about not having enough savings being a sign of financial bondage. That is true. God wants us to save for the future. Remember He may bless us today for a need we will have tomorrow.

But can we save too much? Yes, I believe we can. Ecclesiastes 5:13 says "There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt". Although it is not seen too frequently in today's economy, sometimes we save too much and the Bible calls this hoarding. Just like God may bless us today for a need we will have tomorrow, He may bless us today to meet someone else's need. What a responsibility we have when we receive those blessings!

One of the lessons from the Parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:16 -21 is that we are not blessed by God to hoard our wealth for ourselves. Not only might God be blessing us to meet someone else's physical needs, but we may be blessed to meet someone else's spiritual needs thorough giving to fulfill the Great Commission.

So how do we know how much is enough? Look at Proverbs 6:6-8 where we are instructed to save. The example that is given is the ant. If you will notice the ant is not just saving, he is saving for a specific purpose. In this case he is saving for the winter. We need to have specific reasons for our savings. Perhaps we are saving for retirement, our children's college or a specific vacation that we want to take. But without specific goals, we run the temptation of hoarding.

We also need to be realistic with our goals. I worked with one man who was saving for retirement and realistically he had enough money saved to live to be 500 years old. We need to know that what we are saving for is within God's plan and we also need to have a reasonable idea of how much is needed to accomplish that goal.

Many times God will give us financial principles in the form of balance. Savings is one of those. He will tell us to save, but we must be careful that we do not hoard. Look at Proverbs 30:8b for a good example of another financial principle being given in the form of balance.

God wants us to trust Him and only Him. We need to be careful that we do not trust a savings account or stock portfolio. Hoarding could be an indication that our trust is misdirected.