Underlying Budget Issues

The next section of the treatment is to use either the older version of the Monthly Budget Analysis form or the more recent‍ Budgeting form to analyze expenditures, income and financial stability. Also, consider using Larry Burkett’s forms in his “The Easy Guide to A Budget You Love” (Crown Financial). The handout provides a 5 Step model for budgeting with other practical forms. Also remember and look back to the First Marriage section on budgeting in Chapter 4 that I described about budgeting and finances.

I gave her the monthly budgeting form to start and asked her to fill it out. She didn't complete it, but brought the form back half done, which can be common for clients with financial issues. She gave up on completing the form because her debt was overwhelming to her, the forms were very difficult for her, so the form never got done. I did write to some creditors to inform them of her budget counseling. Because she didn't follow through with the budget planning, the letter that I wrote didn't do her any good in the long run. She had agreed to make minimal payments to demonstrate good faith. 

The next step in the treatment is to work with her spiritual concepts to establish stewardship and God directed choices regarding spending and bill payment. That was where we finally had to focus. And I had to tell her that she didn't face her problems, didn’t work with God, and that is why she was having financial trouble, because of either ignorance or sin. I explained, “When you are impatient, you may be telling the Holy Spirit, you don't want His advice. That also could be a place of pride, hatred or enmity against God's authority. You may not realize that you appear rude, selfish, and easily angered. As a Christian, you misrepresent God. You say you love Jesus, but you refuse to be submissive or obedient to His authority. You maintain your emotional upset by provoking yourself, because you won't face facts. Instead, you worry about what you are going to lose. You won't work with me to identify how you spend your money to make a plan on how to quit spending. You have trouble, because you use money to soothe your past hurts and insecurities. You are not trusting God to help you stop your spending pattern, or to find out why those patterns exist, or recover from the past. Instead of talking to God when you are troubled, you go into impulse buying.” 

You may feel my statements to her may sound harsh, not supportive of her.  Empathic support can go a long way to connect with the client, yet after the empathy, you will need to be kind to the client and speak the truth in love.  You'll find God’s grace is wonderful, though God’s “Agape love is too high of a standard for me.” And they are right, only through the grace of God and the power of His abbinding Presence, can anyone live out His love. For example, they'll say, “All this patience seems so hard!” And I tell them that it's much more difficult to continue to do what you're doing. “You are trying in your own strength and refusing to let God use His strength which is much more effective. You waste your strength trying to do this on your own and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work, yet again. You label yourself a failure and work yourself to death with remorse and being upset.”  I had to focus on the spiritual side of things with her. When I confronted her about the issues she needed to change, she began missing sessions with several types of excuses. Of course, she was in debt, she couldn’t afford it. In a lot of cases, churches will pay for people's counseling. So, I made that suggestion, and she got financial support from her church, but then started to miss for other reasons. Sometimes she forgot. Sometimes she got busy at work. Sometimes she had previous plans. She finally quit counseling, because of the same tendencies that showed in her questionnaire: impatience, rudeness, pride, self- seeking, easily angered, not trusting God, being negative, not persevering. Those weren't overcome. These types of situations will test your own patience, your trust in your financial side of your counseling business in the hands of God.

Obviously, you can have other types of clients who have an Active-sincere personality, and are   not proud, and they just need guidance and help and take to change like a duck to water. With work they will get a good budget and maybe even use an online program to track their finances. Whatever the situation, and they'll be fine. Or a client may be an Active person who just needs to stop, and learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit to help them check their impulse buying. Or if you have a pattern in a couple where one's a nag and the other withdraws, they will be fine if they both change their method of communication, so that they're talking and planning and working with a budget. 

In this particular case, the client could not deal with her finances, because her spiritual issues were so difficult and intense, that she wasn’t ready or willing to change the real reason for the financial problems. As you have seen in the Course 4 case studies and see in this case, her finances and budgeting was not her primary problem.  It'll just vary with the person in the situation. So, my reason for including this particular case and topic in the general counseling issues, was to help you see how the spiritual realities impact financial and budgeting concerns. The personality type, and spiritual issues often are part of the financial issues.  You have the paperwork, forms and the processes that you can give them, and will help them address the financial issues. But the spiritual side also has to be addressed, to see the whole pattern that led to the whole problem. Then you can work effectively with your client to help them to resolve it.

Copyright 1987, 1990, 1993 by Daniel D. Wilkinson. All rights reserved. For more information concerning this material, write to:
The Biblical Christian Counseling Ministries, Inc., 2730 Radcliffe Dr., Florissant, MO 63031.
Any reproduction of this material without the express written consent of the author is prohibited. Printed in the U.S.A..