Henry Blackaby told the story about being approached by a member of his finance committee one year, who said, “Pastor, you have taught us to walk by faith in every area of our church except the budget. We develop the budget on the basis of what we believe we can do. It does not reflect that we expect God to do anything.”
He suggested, “First, we ought to determine all God wants to do through us in the coming year. Second, we need to estimate what that will cost. Then we need to divide the budget revenue into three categories: (1) what we plan to do through our own giving, (2) what others have promised to give in support of our work, and (3) what we must depend on God to do.”
As a church, they prayed and decided God wanted them to use that approach to budgeting. They did not try to dream their own dreams for God. They had to be absolutely certain God was leading them to do the things they put in the budget.
Then, the big question came. What would their operating budget be? By faith, they adopted the grand total as their operating budget. At this point, they reached a crisis of belief. Did they really believe the God who led them to do those things would provide the resources?
That year, their budget was twice what it normally would have been. Yet at year end, God exceeded even that amount by providing revenue they could not have anticipated. God taught their church a lesson in faith that radically changed all members!
For me, a crisis of belief is sensing a task or mission from God that seems impossible or unreasonable.
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