March 18th Week 10

Money is a big thing.  It's important to live from day to day, and it's nice to have for vacations, nice things, etc.  In my opinion money should be a very important thing, but it shouldn't come first.  Things like budgeting and being frugal should be at the for front of people's mind, but things like spending your whole life just trying to get rich, or going into debt to get a fancy car, or even getting a fancy car and not going into debt are things that shouldn't matter so much.  The biggest thing that is connected to money is pride.  If people could strip the pride off of those dollar bills we would live in a better world.  I really think that if we put God first he will help us gain money without the pride.  But if all we do is seek for riches of the world that pride is still going to be attached to those riches.  I really do agree with the statement that money can make a good man better but it can also make a bad man worse.  If riches of the world is top priority there is going to be no service or happiness involved.  It will be all about power and that is where Satan gets a really good grasp on people.  If we seek for the riches of heaven first, so putting others and God first, then the riches of the world is going to come from the help of God and Satan won't have that grasp on us, we will already have those service skills and habits mastered.  I could go on and on about this topic.  Real progress and happiness with money only comes when God is first.
Making decisions before the fact really stood out to me today.  It reminded me of some Sunday lessons I had in Young Women' when I was a Laurel.  We talked about deciding now what our standards and values are.  Would we go see a rated R movie or not?  What was our limit with dating and getting close to a boy?  What would we do if we didn't feel comfortable at a friends house?  etc.  I decided what my core values were right then so that later if one of those situations happened to me I knew exactly what I was going to do and it was a lot easier to stand my ground.  I hadn't thought about how important that is in business until this week.  We need to decide on our values in our business now.  If it gets at the office how am I going to spend time with my family?  Am I going to work on Sunday?  How often am I going to go to kids' activities, and what if something important comes up during one?  When will we go on vacations?  It is important to decide on these things before they happen so that it is harder to be dissuaded from them.  And I think it's important to make a decision about something before there is something looming over your head waiting for you to make that decision.  At that point you never know what you are going to do.