I taught Children's Church yesterday and we learned (yes I said we) I have so much to learn myself still, about the man who lay paralyzed for 38 years waiting to be healed. This morning I was reading an article about eating out and the scary fact that we simply can't afford to eat out, yet it has become a habit, a BAD habit for so many of us. Of course there are excuses after excuses...I am tired, it's been a long day, I am really craving _____, I don't have time, I can't cook, I am too busy, blah blah blah. This isn't directed at anyone but ME! These are some of the truths I learned this morning from a frugal mom blogger.

It is so easy to become apathetic about our finances, whoa is me. I am drowning in debt, let's get a burger. Lol, sounds really silly, but it's so true and sad at the same time. We sink into a fog of apathy, hopelessness and discouragement and just give up trying.

So the lesson I taught last Sunday was found in John 5. It tells about a man who couldn't walk. He had laid by a healing pool for 38 years. If he could dip in the pool when the water stirred, he would be healed. Jesus asks him what he is doing there and he says "Well, I just don't have anyone who will carry me and put me in the pool" (Poor little old me.) Jesus then asks him, "Do you really want to get healed?" This might seem to us a strange question but, as I once heard a woman speaker point out, if he really wanted to get healed wouldn't he have tried some way to inch his way over to that pool even if he could only make it a half an inch a day no matter how hard it was?

Maybe Jesus asked this question because He too thought here is a man, like so many do these days, making excuses, being a victim and waiting for someone else to fix his problem for him. What did Jesus tell him to do? GET UP! (stand on your own two feet), TAKE UP YOUR BED (start being responsible for your own things), and WALK (become active in solving your own problems which may mean physical labor, or doing without somethings).

You need to be like the lame man and GET UP, TAKE UP YOUR BED and WALK. If you know you are going out to eat too much then stop saying you're a victim of these "hard economic times". Be responsible for the "bed" (or the debts that you have now) and actively start doing something about it today.

So thats my challenge to myself, since I don't think anyone, other then Jeremy reads my blog. Haha. I am going to STAND UP (put on my apron), TAKE UP MY FRYING PAN, AND COOK!