“As for you, be strong and do not slack off, for there shall be a reward for what you do” (2 Chronicles 15:7).

It’s May Already?!

With Easter day (and tax day) behind us, the calendar makes it clear that the first quarter of the year has already passed us by. We may have sighed weeks ago on the first day of spring when we realized that our Lenten goals found good company with our new year’s resolutions—both pushed to the side due to distraction and countless other reasons.

One objective that regularly ends up on the “still-to-do” list is often related to financial management.

Let’s Begin Again

Just like with our spiritual failings, although we may fall back onto our longtime, comfortable ways, it’s important to move forward and to reinvigorate our financial goals. We are a people who are called to begin again:

“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the wilderness I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

In the case of how we maintain our finances, we may, indeed, be in a wilderness or a wasteland, possibly due to our squishy budget boundaries or barren record-keeping. Even so, we know that in spite of our repeated missteps, we can do “something new”—even as the second (or third or fourth) quarter begins.

Create or Return to a Plan

God is a planner—a planner for good: “For I know the plans I have in mind for you … plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). Let’s be inspired by this truth and chart out or revisit:

• A business and personal financial plan to know where we are and where we want to go.

• A plan to monitor our day-to-day costs, income, investments, and reserves.

• A plan to keep records (it can be helpful to schedule meetings with an accountability buddy, which can be your financial adviser or a trusted, mature family member or friend).

Time to Buckle Down

Making progress on our financial goals takes a particular type of dedication that can involve research and input from expert professionals, such as accountants, bankers, and financial advisers. Although these efforts can be time-consuming, we hear from Scripture that it is worth it to put in the effort:

“Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish’” (Luke 14:28-30).

So, even if we stumbled earlier in the year, now, as the days are longer and heading into summertime, is the time to again do “something new” and put into action our desire to be good stewards of the financial assets entrusted to us.

Linda A. Burrows is an attorney specializing in trust and estate law in southern California. She studied journalism at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, law at Pepperdine, and tax law at Georgetown. Linda is the founder of Soul Soda, a non-profit with the mission of refreshing faith in those, particularly Catholics, who are feeling disconnected from their religious roots. She is a wife and mother of three teens. Linda’s Confirmation name was that of St. Gabriel the Archangel.