My father, Norman Vincent Peale, might have been a minister, but he cared a lot about how people managed financially.<\/p>\n
After all, he, as the son of a preacher himself, didn\u2019t grow up rich, and he and Mother lived through the Great Depression. He would be the first to tell you how much the Bible says about money, and one of his frequent themes as a preacher was God\u2019s abundance.<\/p>\n
These days with so many suffering from layoffs and foreclosures and wiped out 401(k)s, I\u2019ve often thought about Dad\u2019s advice on prosperous living\u2014and how it\u2019s just right for today.<\/p>\n
Give.<\/strong> Dad found this out in the depths of the Depression. He and Mother had just gotten married and he was the minister at University Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York.<\/p>\n The nation was plunged in gloom and Dad took on a share of his congregation\u2019s fear and anxiety. One sleepless night he went outside and paced frantically in the park. What would happen to the church? What would happen to his family? How would they pay their bills?<\/p>\n It was Mother who sat him down in the living room and reminded him of his priorities. \u201cThings will be fine,\u201d she said. \u201cAll we need to do is give.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we don\u2019t have anything to give!\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will give what we have,\u201d she said, \u201cand when we can, we will increase our giving. We will do what we can for others and for the church, and God will take care of us as he always has.\u201d<\/p>\n By giving, you put yourself in God\u2019s care and demonstrate your trust in his providence.<\/p>\n Save.<\/strong> Being prudent didn\u2019t mean being stingy. To do without, to do more with less, to use all that you had, were matters of good stewardship.<\/p>\n One of Dad\u2019s favorite stories was about how Henry Ford didn\u2019t waste a thing in the manufacturing of his famous Model A car.<\/p>\n Ford gave meticulous orders on how the engine blocks were to be crated for shipment to the assembly plants, meticulous because every crate was later used as floor boarding in the cars.<\/p>\n As Dad said, \u201cGod gave us abundance not to squander but to cherish.\u201d It\u2019s simple\u2014save more, give more.<\/p>\n Rethink.<\/strong> After hearing a litany of complaints, she stood up and announced that she wouldn\u2019t give a \u201cnickel more,\u201d but she had some good advice for the fledgling publication.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I keep hearing here is the word \u2018lack\u2019,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2018We lack subscribers, we lack equipment, we lack money, we lack ideas.\u2019 Well, you\u2019re never going to move ahead until you get rid of those lack thoughts and replace them with prosperity thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n As Dad would explain many times in the years ahead, the person whose attitude is one of lack will never have enough no matter how much he has.<\/p>\n The positive thinker, on the other hand, will value what he has, even if it is a little. The key is to focus your thinking on the good things God wants to give you. Is it any wonder that once Guideposts<\/em> followed that wise woman\u2019s advice, it thrived?<\/p>\n Hope.<\/strong> Nothing could have been more hopeless looking than that boat in the sand. But at the bottom of the picture was the caption, \u201cThe tide will always come back.\u201d<\/p>\n That picture reminded the man to live in hope. Again and again the Bible counsels us not to be anxious about the future.<\/p>\n Worry blocks creative thinking, shrivels accomplishment and tends to stop the flow of ideas. Worry distances us from God, whereas living in faith brings us peace of mind and closer to him.<\/p>\n Hard times never last. Abundance is as close as the turn of the tide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My father, Norman Vincent Peale, might have been a minister, but he cared a lot about how people managed financially. After all, he, as the son of a preacher himself, didn\u2019t grow up rich, and he and Mother lived through the Great Depression. He would be the first to tell you how much the Bible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1052],"class_list":["post-21641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-advice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nDad called it the Law of Supply: The world is full of goodness and prosperity, but the only way to realize that is by giving.<\/p>\n
\nThrift and frugality were as natural to my parents as their generosity.<\/p>\n
\nWhen Mother and Dad started Guideposts<\/em> magazine, things were pretty rocky. Costs were climbing, so a wealthy woman was invited to a meeting of the board of directors in hopes that she\u2019d make a donation.<\/p>\n
\nDad loved to tell the story of a business friend who kept a print in his office of a beached old scow, the two oars resting dejectedly on the sand. On the horizon is a glimpse of the distant water.<\/p>\n