painful installments

Christ Jesus,

I understand the gift of breath.

I understand the heartbeat

that asks nothing from my hands.

Morning arrives.

My lungs rise.

Blood keeps flowing.

Mercy keeps whispering.

Calvary settled

what I could never purchase.

Healing stands

as a gift I could never earn.

Yet another question

waits beside my empty wallet.

Why here?

Why does abundance

feel different?

Why must I stumble

through lessons

my own choices created?

Why must every financial mistake

become a classroom

whose tuition is paid with tears?

Why must wisdom

arrive so slowly?

Why must discipline

grow through hunger?

Why must delayed gratification

stretch across months,

sometimes years,

while my heart keeps asking,

“How much longer?”

If healing

is freely given,

why not prosperity?

If Your grace

covers my body,

why not my bank account?

If Your love

requires no payment,

why does financial understanding

seem to demand

every painful installment?

Lord,

I am not accusing You.

I am confessing

that I do not understand.

I watch others speak

about breakthrough,

while I count coins

and count consequences.

I replay old decisions,

wishing I had listened sooner,

learned sooner,

waited longer,

spent less,

planned better.

Every regret

becomes another voice

reminding me

that tomorrow remembers

what yesterday planted.

I wish there were

another cross

where financial foolishness

could simply disappear.

Another empty tomb

where every debt,

every poor decision,

every wasted opportunity

would remain forever buried.

Yet dawn still greets me

with another lesson.

Another choice.

Another invitation

to become someone

I was not yesterday.

Perhaps my greatest struggle

is not the empty pocket,

but the impatient heart

that wants harvest

without seasons,

wealth

without wisdom,

reward

without waiting.

Christ Jesus,

I still do not understand.

I still ask,

“Why this road?”

Still,

I bring You

my questions

instead of hiding them.

Teach me

what I cannot yet see.

Strengthen me

where I grow weary.

Shape my heart

while You shape my hands.

Whether answers arrive today

or years from now,

let every unanswered question

draw me closer

to the One

who never grows distant.

Until understanding comes,

I will keep asking.

I will keep listening.

I will keep walking,

even when the road

makes no sense.