Ecclesiastes 4:9, ESV

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.”

Of all the many subjects and topics that are involved in marriage, the management of finances is one of the biggest. The management of finances is considered one of the most listed reasons why many married couples head towards divorce. They come to a point where they simply cannot agree on how to use the money that they make and eventually use this as part of the justification as to why they can’t make it work. How can a man and woman who have come into a marriage relationship handle their finances in a Biblical way and also respect the desires that they each have?

My mother and father were married for fifty-six years before my father was called home to be with the Lord in 2021. Throughout their marriage my mother was a stay at home wife and mother and my father worked in finance and healthcare. I can remember very vividly how my father would talk about the money that he received for his work. He never referred to it as his money, or the money that he had earned. Every time he talked about money he referred to it as “our money” and the money “we made”. When he would talk about his work he would make statements like this “we had that job down in Florida and we make this amount at that job.” He knew the truth and lived it out, he and my mother were not two separate people living together, they were one. Whatever my father did, my mom was a part of it. Whatever income my father made in his work belonged to my mother just as much as it did to him. And the same attitude was reciprocated by mother. Because of that perspective, whenever decisions came up about how to use that money, they were made together. When financial struggles came up, they were faced together. And whenever there was a disagreement, they talked about it until a solution could be identified.

I have taken what I saw my father demonstrate and work to apply it in my own marriage. My desire is for my wife and I to share everything. I don’t want to make decisions by myself or hold anything back from my wife. Everything that I have been blessed with, I desire to share fully with my wife, and I desire that my wife will share everything with me as well. The moment that we make a decision to withhold something, even if it may seem like a small part, we are starting to place a gap in our marriage. When we make a financial decision in our marriage and choose not to include our wife or husband, we are causing damage.

We should also not only seek answers and direction about our finances by ourselves either. It should not only be the husband and wife who discuss finances, but the husband and wife should go together to the Lord and seek His direction as well. Consider a prayer like this, “Father we come to You together and we ask that You lead us and guide us in the way that You would have us to use the resources that You have blessed us with. Our desire is to do Your will in our marriage and our home. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.” When we include each other in our financial decisions and also go together to seek the counsel of the Lord He will answer and give us discernment.

So, my challenge for you today is this, are there areas in your financial management that you need to change? Do you need to work together with your husband or wife to seek the Lord together? Are there areas that you need to confess either to your husband or wife, or maybe even to the Lord together? Today is the day to begin to work together and fully share what you have been blessed with, and to do it for the glory of the Lord!