John N N Nganga Meditation Of 27 th May 2024….Preparing For Old Age … ..own money together as a couple
Day 1
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs
Like we have said before you cannot enjoy old age if you do not know how to manage your personal finances. Let me give you three reasons why this is a very important subject. Number one, because many divorces when you trace them, they have something to do with differing views for a couple on money. So it means that if the two of you are not agreed on money, there are great possibilities that you may not last together many years into old age together.
It is a matter that must be agreed. Otherwise, many retiring, pension couples are fighting over the little money that is available. And it is very important that you understand you cannot endure your marriage into old age if you don’t agree on how to do the money when making it, when using it, and when even dispensing it.That includes issue of inheritance. How will you give it away to your children or whoever comes after you. So you can see clearly it is not a subject you can ignore, and you only ignore it at your own risk or your own destruction.
Number two reason , it is because Jesus talked about money a lot. So that when you go through the teachings of Jesus, you will see a lot about money, including that the love of money is the root of all evil. And so if we don’t talk about how to deal with money, and one or both of you have actually got the love of money problem, you not only will have a bad marriage, you will also miss heaven.
So it needs to be understood clearly that you have to find a way of looking at money, your attitude to money, so that it doesn’t get to where it deprives you of heaven. So this is a very, very important subject.
Thirdly and importantly the reason is because we all have a calling. There is a calling for the spouse, there is a calling for yourself, then there is a calling for you as a couple. There is a purpose God brought you together in the marriage. And to make it happen, money plays a role. How you spend Money is the one that shows whether you are operating within your calling. And so if we don’t discuss it there will be trouble in that marriage.
I hope that tells you how important it is. However, money is a very small aspect of the totality of marriage. And if you are going to manage money properly, you must manage it according to what Christian marriage is all about. In Matthew, Jesus is saying, please do not look at the marriage of Solomon, or marriage of David, or marriage of Hosea, and start making your marriage on the basis of the Old Testament saints. He says, it was not like that from the beginning.
So if you want to manage your money properly, do not copy any one of those Old Testament saints. Go back to the book of Genesis and see what the intention of God was on how marriage was to be done. And so I invite you to go to Genesis chapter two and see why was marriage to be started, what is the basics of marriage? And here we learn, that is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they become one flesh. Adam and Eve were both naked and they felt no shame. That is a description of the first marriage.
And so if we are talking about biblical family finance policies, if we are setting up our own biblical finance policies, they must be in agreement with that definition of marriage by God in Genesis chapter two.
Let’s just try to expound on this and how it remains your policy on how to manage money as a family. Just look at the first phrase. That is why a man leaves his father and mother. There is a message there; much wider, but for us in this particular discussion, we are only thinking about money. How will you leave your father and mother financially? Obviously, you will leave them physically, you can leave them psychologically, but the most important truth that you have actually obeyed this requirement of a biblical marriage is that you have left them economically. If you don’t leave them economically, there will be a problem.
Day 2
He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon.”
You need a new finance ownership system where parents are not welcome. You cannot call yours a biblical marriage if you haven’t left your father and mother on the issues of money. Remember what they say, whoever pays the piper calls the tune. In other words, they will be very clear that if your parents are the ones sponsoring your marriage, they will also hold you to account. They will ask you,’ by the way last time I gave you a cow. How are you milking it? That wife of yours doesn’t even know how to milk’. Now, you reply… papa you are interfering with my marriage. His reply…I am only nterfering with my cow. When you accepted my cow, you also accepted that I can give you direction. My friend, you cannot expect to have a biblical marriage if you do not have financial independence.
That does not mean your parents cannot give you an inheritance, but it must not be still under their control. They should not be telling you, you know I will give you that piece of land but no title yet. Tell them, it is not mine until you give me the title. For now keep it. You say, okay, I can run my marriage the way I am.. with the little we have. The day he gives you the land , he will transfer the title to you. As soon as he does that, it is now yours, you can now manage it with your spouse . He or his other children cannot use that land after he has transferred it in order to manage you. But as long as it is a promise, that he is promising to give you the land, he will keep saying, you know, that plot of land I promised to give you.. it will be yours soon. But the way you seem to be operating your marriage, I don’t think I am still giving you the land. What do I need to do? You ask.That wife of yours, you need to discipline her! I don’t think the last time you came here she was behaving right. Now, you tell your wife eeeh, my wife, if you don’t behave we will lose the plot, a whole ten acres. Please, behave. Now, who is running your marriage? It is being run by remote control by father via the promised piece of land.
And I repeat myself; I am not suggesting you cannot receive property from your parents. But do not act on the basis of the promise. If you are buying a plot, buy for yourself. If in addition to that you get land from your father, surely, you can manage the bigger land. If you have five acres of your own, and he gives you ten acres, you will manage fifteen.
So don’t operate like you have, something not yet given. Then one thing I keep asking people, surely, if your parents have actually brought you up, come to the level of the educated by sacrificing heavily is that not enough. Now you are educated, there is something you are doing that way you are earning an income, shouldn’t you be the one helping your parents rather than continuing to expect from your parents? Why can’t you run a new separate economy , not relying on your parents. And you know the Lord can bless you to the extent that even your parents feel embarrassed about giving you anything, because whatever they have in totality, even if they deprived all the other children, it is so small compared with what you have.
They will stop interfering with your marriage on the basis of an inheritance, once they know you are not waiting for one because God has given you much more than that. I hope you start understanding why God in defining a biblical marriage as independent of parents.He insisted that you must leave your father and mother.
But my understanding is that those are not the only people you leave. They are the people that are the closest and most influential. But if you are going to leave your father and mother economically, you must leave other people too. You must not have an uncle or an employer or a boss who dictates how you run your marriage. Because you see, if you can leave your father and mother, who is this other person who should be calling the shots in your own marriage? The biblical requirement is for you to start a new marriage. In a biblical marriage, you must economically determine to run independent of others. What does that mean? It means that if all you can afford is a rented house in Korogocho, and all you can afford are two cups and two plates and two spoons, you are okay and will still have a happy marriage. We are not suggesting that as a couple you need to be rich.
Day 3
Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.
But like I will be saying in a short while, riches or poverty do not determine the joy of your marriage. So it means that your parents can be rich, living in Muthaiga, and you are living in Korogocho, but you have a happy marriage. Because the important thing is the cup and the knife, you know where it came from. So you are happy this is what God has given you. And because the two of you accept what you have, as you pray for God to give you more, you are in the meanwhile happily married. You will be happy.
So we are not suggesting that, to be independent you require more money. No. Become independent at the level of income you have now. And you will discover, like I will be saying, the joy of your marriage has nothing to do how much money you have . Are you aware that there are more divorces above a certain level of income than at a lower level of income? I have quoted in my book The Secret of Contentment, that anybody who is above a million dollars income per year, chances that they will end up in divorce is far much higher than anybody whose income is for example a hundred thousand dollars per year. I am not suggesting that you become poor so that your marriage doesn’t collapse. But this is properly documented statistics, that people who actually end up staying together is not because they have more money … It sounds like the more the money that comes in, more likely it brings up problems. Okay that’s US data but I doubt that the Kenyan data is any different. Data clearly shows an increase in income is not an increase in the longevity of your marriage. An increase in income is not an increase in the joy of your marriage.
And I thought we need to discuss that idea that a biblical marriage is a marriage where the father and mother have have been left out by the couple . That’s why I have a big quarrel with the Kikuyu itara. If you are the one old enough to have children wedding , please don’t have an itara. What is an itara? Itara is a Kikuyu word that talks about where firewood is dried up inside the house above the fire place. And so a girl who is getting married to your son is supposed to come to your house, not to know the son’s house but to know the mother’s house; the mother of the son. And then they are shown where the fire wood can be dried, for a very good reason. Because when you finally get married you will not have dry firewood. So which firewood will you use? You will cook with your mother fire wood .
So the message to a Kikuyu in an itara ceremony is that you are not marrying the son, you are marrying the family. And you will not just have the son as the one in your marriage, your mother-in-law will have power over it. And obviously that’s why the son used to build his house behind the mothers. And therefore, the mother-in-law not only run her marriage, she also had an influence on the son’s marriage.
So how can a Christian who understands the principles of biblical marriage, why would they end up having an itaara? Itaara promise is that you are going to have one economy with your parents. The firewood will be shared. My Christian friend, before the wedding begin your own house with your wet firewood. Learn how to dry the firewood. Do not mix the two economies. She will soon quarrel with your wife , eeeh, you took all my firewood. What is wrong with you? What kind of a woman did my son marry? All of that because of sharing firewood, because you believe in itaara. That’s basically one of the things that you have to deal with.
The older you are as a couple, the less relevant that message is because by now maybe you have reached a level where you have economic independence or parent have died . But then I am talking to people who are now entering the parenting, where they will be parents-in-law, not too many years from now. So I am talking to them, telling them, please don’t look forward to bringing in a girl for your son to work for you. If she comes she belongs to your son, not to you. Parents reading this must allow our children to run their marriage, economically independent of parents. If you transfer money to them let it be a gift, gone, don’t follow it.It is a very important principle, very, very important principle in dealing with this issue Christian marriage and money .
Day 4
Why should fools have money in hand to buy wisdom, when they are not able to understand it?
Principle number two of biblical family finance management is in the bible phrase, once you leave your father and mother, you must be united to your wife and become one flesh. So it is not enough that you have left your parents. The second thing is, do you own your money together? Because here they are saying, be united to your wife. What does united mean? Of course a lot of people think unity is only in the bedroom. That’s one united. But there is also unity in terms of psychology, emotionally supporting one another. But there is also unity in terms of income. The money the wife had, the money the husband has becomes one. It is now owned together.
Let me repeat, that biblical marriage is like communism, where each party makes money according to their ability, so that both the wife and the husband must work together to make more money, but use it according to need. In other words, you must use money together according to the agreed budget. And it doesn’t matter who made the money. Whoever makes more money that’s okay. And you know this a very, very important issue that is causing a lot of trouble in marriages, especially when the wife is the one who ends up earning more.
When you enter into a biblical marriage you have one economy. In one economy, if the wife gets more money, she doesn’t get any money for herself. It is the joint economy that gets more money. If the husband gets more money, he doesn’t get the money himself, it is the new economy that gets it together. So it really doesn’t matter who earns more . When God wants to bless you, He can bless you via the route of the wife or He can bless using the route of the husband. It doesn’t matter who He uses. When the money finally comes together, it is for the growth of that family and their children. So you can’t dictate to God, God, I am the husband. Make sure my salary increases before my wife’s. No, no, no. All you need is to pray, God meet our needs, help our economy to grow. Now, if He chooses to use your wife, ok. Now, you can see the intention of God was to deal a blow to this issue of competition within a marriage. It is not meant to be there, because after you left your mother and father¸ and your wife also leaves her mother and father, when you come together you become united, you become one flesh. You have one economy.
And what that then means is that there is no possibility that it matters who has more money. You know, when money is put together, the wife will never feel richer than the husband. You know in a lot of marriages, including Christian ones, some of them reading this , you have where the wife feels very rich and she is very sorry she is married to a poor husband. Of course I have been involved in counseling such marriages, where she says, you know, my husband is not a go getter. I don’t know what is wrong with him. I don’t know why God gave me such a husband. This is because in your own mind you are the rich one. It can’t be a biblical marriage. In a biblical marriage you are either equally rich or equally poor. Nobody is richer than the other.
So some of the times you are counseling in a marriage and they are telling you, I gave my husband a loan of twenty thousand shillings. That was three years ago. He still has not paid. Surely, who was borrowing from the other? And these are two Christians talking. There is no way the left hand can lend the right hand, because they belong to the same body. You have a marriage, that I don’t deny, but you don’t have a biblical marriage. The way you are running your marriage is certainly not scriptural. You may have heard me talk about the issue of federation marriage. What is a federation marriage? Where you run your life independently except in three things. You share the house, you share the bed and its security , and then your foreign affairs is the same. It means you have one name, you are both called Ng’ang’as. That is foreign affairs. People see you as one. Also defence. If you touch Rebecca, husband fights back .
It is a very serious matter. So those two ministries of defence and foreign affairs, most Christian couples have no problem being one. But in the rest of the time they are running independent lives. That’s why the wife is rich and the husband is poor. My friend, Christian marriage is oneness in all areas. One flesh. You don’t have a federation, you have a unitary government, everything runs together, like we have in Kenya, where the economy grows together and everybody benefits. But I am told in America where they have a federation, California can get very rich but Ohio is not getting rich. And people have to even migrate, within the same country, to look for the wealth. My friend, that’s not a Christian marriage.
Day 5
Genesis 2
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife
Let me give you a few signs of a federation marriage. These are people who are in agreement, they love each other but they tell the wife, your income will look after the revenue expenditure items. But the man will look after capital expenditure items. What is capital expenditure? Items that have titles. You know, what is revenue expenditure? Items that have no title. You know, school fees has no title, clothing has no title. That’s the wife to pay. Buying a plot, taking a mortgage, that’s for a man. Now, the trouble with such a federation is sometimes inflation hits certain items, not all items. The prices of houses is not going up but meat and wheat flour are going up. The wife feels from today we are not going to eat meat anymore. He says, no, we must eat meat. After all the husband is not feeling the inflation. So he insists they must eat meat daily., you want to finish me, the wife argues. Now, can you imagine, those are the kind of marriages, some of them are represented by you reading this , where inflation is touching one, and not touching the other, and so they start looking at each other with bad eyes, because you know, you, the other is not getting affected. That’s what a federation is.
I agree it is very important to understand that the reason people have federation marriages is because of three challenges . They fear each other, and they don’t want to collide. Therefore, run your thing, I run my thing. That way we don’t have a lot of problems with each other.
Number two challenge , they don’t trust each other. And because they don’t trust each other ,they don’t want somebody getting access to your money in case they misuse it.
Number three, they really don’t even understand biblical marriage. So they think it is okay, it is a choice they can make. In other words you can choose what to do. You do not believe the Bible is the director on issues of marriage.
So it is important to understand if you are going to have a biblical marriage, it will be very, very important that you understand the bible requirement of unitary economy, where both of you raise income together, and it doesn’t matter who gets more as long as both of you are working hard, but you use it according to your agreed budget.
But you must have joint ownership of all that you possess. Again for three reasons. Number one, you vowed it anyway. You said, I give you half my worldly possessions? By the time you are doing that you have only a box of clothes. So it is not very difficult for a wife to just say, I give you everything. But unfortunately the pastor forgot to put a limit, to say, only for the first one year. Now, forty years later you are very rich and your wife is very poor. You want to revise the vow. It is too late, you vowed. The vows that the pastors make us vow are that we are going to give everything we have to the spouse so that we own it together.
Number two, it is because joint ownership is a biblical requirement. And we have read that.
Day 6
Genesis 2
V24……… and they become one flesh
Number three, it is what will give you what we call economies of scale.
Those are three reasons why you need to own jointly everything. What are economies of scale? If your wife owns money and they go to apply for a mortgage, they can only report their money. If the husband on his own, he wants to apply,he gets low level loan .But when you apply together, they look at the joint income. And you are going to qualify for certain mortgages that you could not have qualified if you had gone alone. It makes economic sense in terms of your economic development as a couple, to put resources together, budget together. That way you are able to save more and invest more. It is very, very important that, that is understood.
So I think I am giving you human reasons as to why I understand why the Bible gave us the requirement. I am saying therefore, if money is not married it is not a Christian marriage you have. Just like I tell Christians, if your money is not saved, you are unlikely to be saved yourself. You need to come to where God owns everything you possess. So if you are born again, even your money must be used for God’s purpose.
Similarly, if you are truly married, your money must also get married. And therefore you will not have a poor husband and a rich husband. All of us will be either equally poor or will be equally rich.
However I am aware what I am saying may be new. I am only recommending it because it is biblical. In my assessment, not many obey it.At least for the last twenty five years of marriage ministry , we have been involved in marriage counseling and marriage seminars. We have come to a conclusion that about sixty percent of all born again believers, sixty percent of them live in federations. Maybe only forty percent have given in to this issue of oneness in money. So I am already aware it is not practiced by many people.
Number two, I am aware that you are certainly taking a risk, because if one of you is not trustworthy, there will be troubles in the way money is used. And you could end up with no money for school fees because one of the two parties is careless, and it doesn’t have to be the man, it can sometimes be the wife, who has a deep desire to use money, and uses money she has and even money she does not have. Within no time, you are using the family money to pay debts the wife took without even telling you.
So I agree there are challenges within that issue of owning money together . I am not naïve about it. However, one of the things I do know is that when you budget money together, it forces you to discuss, it forces you to be each other’s keeper, it forces you to be accountable to one another. When you put money aside, it allows independence. And that independence can lead even to affairs ..dogodogos, somewhere else. It can also lead to pulling to different directions to the detriment of the marriage.
So given these advantages of taking the risk, to have your money together then you are better of taking the risk. It is a risk, yes. I am admitting it is a risk. But the return is very high. The return of oneness, the return of trustworthiness, is worth it. Once you have money together, you will soon see whether I am trustworthy or not because you will see the money is going to places, and I don’t want to tell you where it went. When I have my own money I can run my things without you discovering. Once we have money together you will see money disappear from the account and you have no idea where it is going. And somebody will start telling you, no, no, no. I am not going to tell you. So you will know there is a problem. That way you can solve it early
So the advantages of running the money together far outweigh the risk. But I am admitting there is a risk.
We have gone through two items on biblical financial policies for marriages. Number one, the importance of economic independence, from any other person, including your father and mother, so that you run your own thing, dependent on God together, but not dependent on outsider. Number two, that you must have a joint economy.
Day 7
Genesis 2
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
But thirdly and importantly, we read in verse twenty five, and Adam and his wife were both naked. What does naked mean? It means transparent. I know there is an organization called Transparency International, that talks about the importance of accountability and responsibility. What we are learning is, in a biblical marriage, people are naked, they don’t cover up themselves or hide anything from each other. And for this particular talk, they do not hide money. If you have any debts, you do not wait to tell your wife later. She knows even before she met you that you have this loan ,but this is your income, and these are the debts you are paying.
After that if you are buying things, it means that you are buying them together. If you had things you owned earlier before marriage, they must be declared openly. You must be naked financially. And it will be very important to understand that because in a lot of cases, people don’t want to be open. If your parents give you something, you need to register it in the name of two of you, because your parents may not want to give your wife and they will use that property to separate your marriage. To be naked means you are open in every way. It means every money you have is run together, jointly, by the wife and the husband. And you are open about it.
It means your wife knows your salary. You can’t get a salary increase without your wife knowing. After all, the salary increase of the husband actually belongs to the wife. You said so during the wedding day. So it will be important to say when you talk about transparency, it is very clear you are open.
And you know some of us, even show that lack of transparency and yet pastors clap for them. You know you find a pastor saying, , you can’t believe how much Brother Ng’ang’a loves his wife . Look, when you go outside you will see he has surprised his wife with a car. And the whole church laughs.
Three things wrong with this . Number one, for the husband to surprise the wife with a car, where did he get the money from? He is a thief, because the money belongs to the family, then he stole it, and part of it, like corrupt people normally do,they use on the wife. They steal it, then give in donations in harambees. So the wife is only getting a donation out of his theft. Now, surely, how can the pastor ask us to clap for a thief?
But the second thing is, for you to surprise your wife with a car, it means that you are not transparent. She may not even have known you could afford a second car. That’s why both of you have been using one car with all the challenges. But you could actually have afforded another car, and all this while you have sat on the money. It shows you have no transparency. My friend, the Word of God is saying a biblical marriage is a marriage of nakedness. Not nakedness to the whole world. Don’t tell outsiders, don’t tell your brothers and sisters and your uncles about how you run your marriage. But your wife must know in totality everything about money; how you are making it, how you are using it, how you are investing it, how you are saving it.
There is no way you can be surprising your wife with a big gift. You tell her when covid is less I am taking you to Italy for a holiday. She says, can we afford it? Don’t worry. Your husband knows ways. Now, my friend, which ways? Are you going to be corrupt? How will you get that money? Now, your wife should be aware that if you are talking like that, she should not be rejoicing. She should be realizing this guy is on his way to hell. He is breaking the rules of the Bible. Which other rule is he already breaking? It will be important to understand that nakedness is a biblical requirement. Again it is not easy but it is the only way. Let me give you three possibilities when you are naked. You will share everything together. Open in using money. It means that you cannot go to your village, and your parents ask you for ten thousand, and you give them, and your wife doesn’t know. Next time you come together with your wife, your mother will say, you know we must thank our son. That ten thousand you gave us, it has been so useful. Your wife looks at you like, you gave ten thousand? How? You stole our money and gave it without the owner’s permission? Because it is not your money, it is our money.
So when you are giving to your parents without your wife knowing, and most of the time it is actually not men who do that, women are the ones, it is wrong.I think, in my own assessment, women are worse in giving their family without ever the husband getting to know. My friend, I think you need to understand you are lacking in nakedness. And that lack of nakedness means you are not operating your marriage as a biblical marriage. So it means on those issues of finances, it will be very, very important that we be transparent. Not surprising spouse .
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