Paying Bills & Covenant-Keeping

Once upon a time, I loved to pay the bills. As an eighteen year-old in my first apartment, I was delighted to watch money siphoned from my checking account, because it meant that I was independent, important, and mature. I felt like Steve Martin in the movie, The Jerk, where he was ecstatic after finding his name in the phone book for the first time. Finally, the feeling goes, I'm somebody. I have my name in the phone book... I'm paying bills.

What on earth was I thinking?

Now, I hate paying bills. Almost as much as getting a shot. I put it off until the last, possible moment. If there were a way out of it, believe you me, I'd have found it by now. Now, bills remind me of the responsibilities and burdens that hold us down. I find no joy in them whatsoever.

But when the fulfillment of our legal and civil obligations is merely burdensome, something is missing. I'm determined to reclaim the joy of paying bills. OK, that's probably too much to ask, but I'm hoping to at least find some silver lining around the proverbial hole in the bottom of our financial bucket.

And I think I've found a starting point. We live in a world that is short on trust, where many young people grow up without ever seeing an example of promises kept, having never tasted the fulfilling fruit of covenant-keeping. For the next generation, broken promises and unmet obligations are the norm.

So, what if we saw obligations to our landlord, the government, or the gas company as opportunities to keep our own promises, to hold up our end of the bargain, and to do what we said we would do... in order to train ourselves in the lost art of covenant-keeping, one paid bill at a time? Would it change the way we look at our commitments and obligations to our jobs? Our kids? Our spouses? Would it change the way we see the mundane, ongoing tasks of life, from washing dishes and changing oil to taking out the trash and making photocopies?

It better. Otherwise, our lives will be full of meaningless tasks and obligations that simply detract from the quality of one's existence. Without a connection to a greater purpose and a broader meaning, we feel more like hamsters running in a cage than creatures of a loving, caring Creator who has a plan for our lives.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:12