Pay’ God first…

By Daniel Francis

Have you ever heard of Parkinson’s Law of Money? I was first introduced to it while working at the bank. I was fresh out of college, and as is the natural order, I needed to make some money. I took the first job I could find and ended up at the bank.

Many lessons were learned during that period, but one was Parkinson’s Law of Money. This law states that your expenditure typically rises to meet your income. Let’s say you go from making $5,000 to $7,000, or even to $10,000 per month, your expenditure typically rises to meet your total income if unchecked.

I like to think of it as a cup being filled with water. If you change the cup size to an incrementally bigger one, you will fill it close to the brim, not realising that the amount changes from cup to cup.

While at the bank, I felt like I never had enough money, and when I began growing my business in tandem with my bank job, I was now pulling in two incomes. However, it was as though the extra money did not matter. I found myself in the same position at the end of the month: living paycheque to paycheque and, as we say, ‘scrunting’ on that last week of the month.

Why was this happening? Well, Parkinson’s Law of Money neatly explains why. You see, as you make more money, you naturally want to spend more. You want to spend in ways that you couldn’t when you were making less.

You might buy a car and add additional monthly payments, you may eat out more, etc. You think less about how you are spending your money, and hence your expenditure meets your income, even though you were managing with less just recently.

This law got me thinking about the parallel to spiritual life. Just as money stretches to meet income, our busyness stretches to fill our time. Have you ever found that you just can’t find the time to practise your faith?

You can’t seem to get enough time to pray; you’re too tired to go to church; or you just can’t seem to find the time to read your Bible, for example.

Just like your unchecked spending, you fill up your time with anything except those that add to your spiritual life. Without boundaries, spiritual practices are squeezed out, just like without boundaries, you spend and spend until you can’t anymore.

What this all comes down to is discipline. My mind runs on stewardship in the Catholic Church as I write this. This stewardship speaks to responsibly managing the gifts God has given us, not only by nurturing them but also by prioritising the time to use them to serve God and His kingdom.

Just like frugality, stewardship isn’t accidental; it’s very intentional. So, in the same way we must budget our money to not spend needlessly, we must budget our time, so we set aside necessary time for spiritual practices.

When attempting to properly save and invest money, people are encouraged to pay themselves first. This translates to setting aside money for savings and investing as soon as you get your income, to decrease the likelihood of spending it.

Similarly, I want to encourage us all to place God first. To me, this translates to not only setting aside the time for God but also potentially putting that time for spiritual activities first.

A practice that I have is to pray and read my Bible as my first activity when I wake up. I find that when I leave these for later in the day, I find excuses not to do them. I fill my cup, and I don’t leave room for more.

With financial discipline, you would ask yourself, “How can I use my money in more productive ways?” In spiritual discipline, you should be asking yourself, “How can I spend my time to increase service to God, my faith, and others?” Discipline means intentional thought. It means blocking time for what’s important first before scheduling everything else. It means viewing stewardship as our responsibility because we want to offer our best to God each day.

Incomes will rise, busyness will rise, but our boundaries set by our discipline should hold us firm, so we choose differently.

Where can you set boundaries this week in money, time, or energy? Remember to make space for God’s will.

Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.

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