Like most people I always had a vision of what I wanted in life in terms of material wealth. I devised my plan and worked extremely hard for several years to reach my goals.

Back then I owned and operated my own franchise as a Vice-President with one of the largest financial service companies in the world and I did it to the best of my ability. With the success of the corporation as my priority in life, I barely saw my family, but found justification in the fact that I was providing them with all the material things that I did not have growing up. The irony is that no matter how much money I obtained, I was never satisfied and truly not at peace with myself.

Then with God's blessings a friend introduced me to Jesus and he immediately ended the thirst that I longed for my entire life. However, now with Christ as my saviour, I realized that my lifestyle was a lot different than other Christians. I began a deep journey towards personal validity in finding peace with my spiritual convictions and my financial standing.

As I began to understand God's intent for my life, I realized that being a Christian did not mean that I needed to live a lifestyle of Financial Weakness. I truly believe that God has a plan for me to help other people reach their goals through the understanding that we do not have to live poorly to be faithful.

So armed with my Bible and the Word of God, I began to do his work and soon realized that this was going to be an intense battle. Please do not take the word "Intense" lightly because countering an institutionalized mindset is extremely difficult. You see regardless of faith, gender, social standing, college education, occupation - most people live irresponsibly as if they have money to burn.

The mere fact of you reading my Lens today is a testimonial to the wired, mega-marketing world that we live in.

As global consumers we are constantly bombarded with messages of buy, buy, buy and if you can't afford it, we'll find a way to make you afford it. Our society teaches us that we need to consume in record amounts, which I believe is counter to God's magnificent plan for us.

To be at peace in any discipline in life there has to be a sense of balance and when the scale is constantly tipped to one side you will not find the outcome that you seek.

We've often heard countless romantic stories about the one that got away. We'll that's fine - EXCEPT - when talking about the topic of money.

God does not want us to allow the result of our sweat and countless hours of employment to simply fly away like a migrating bird. Instead his plan for us is to have a firm understanding of money and how it works. You see money is a tool just like the hammer that sits in your tool box. It is used to drive things through and add to the foundation much like a hammer does with a nail.

However, if the hammer strikes the nail too hard or on an improper angle, more times than not the nail will either bend or depending on the nail type, it may break.

When we allow our money to fly away from us we are often consuming material goods in a manner that is too hard for our current financial standing. And much like the anology of the nail bending, we destroy our credit, our peace of mind and sometimes our health.

The Bible will have many references to people repenting throughout it's text. And although this word is very debatable and quite often misunderstood in today's society, most scholars agree that it has a lot to do with retraining your mind and actions in some way.

To manage your money effectively and walk into God's financial plan for you there has to be an acceptance of changing your current ways and retraining your mind to be much more proactive in the way that you handle money. When you do so a new world will open for you filled with propserity and blessings.

I have always been a huge fan of Gardeners. They have the vision for what they see in the future and take the necessary steps to cultivate the soil, plant the seeds and nuture it's growth over a period of time. None more so than those brave souls that tend to Bamboo trees.

It is estimated that a Bamboo tree does not break ground until several years after it is planted and the Gardener must tend to the seedling quite often. If we saw someone watering and cultivating the soil for several years without any change we would think the person is insane. But as the Bamboo tree begins to break ground we see that this Gardener has successfully produced one of the healthiest and most expensive trees in the world.

Please view your finances in the same light as does the Gardener and do your best to produce an ever abundant source of propserity that will last you for years to come.