Simply Grateful: Testimonies of God’s Financial Blessings and Intervention

By Regina D. Fowler

Ephesians 3:20

“This scripture is not simply saying God is able to bless us in a great way or with abundance; of course, He can and does. It is telling us that God is able to exceed what we as mere humans consider to be abundance. If we think what we have is an abundance, then we have fallen short on our understanding of what God can do. If we can imagine it, then God can exceed it.  Therefore, after the phrase “exceeding abundantly” comes the phrase “above all that we ask or think.”  God does not limit what He can do for us; only we can do that “according to the power that worketh in us.” In other words, only our level of faith in God limits how far He exceeds our expectations. Be clear: abundance is not just about how much money or material possessions we have; it’s more about the peace we can experience amid our abundance.“

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664251519

Regina D. Fowler

Regina Fowler was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the tenth child of twelve to her parents, Jesse and Mary Battle Sr. Her parents taught Regina and her siblings to trust God no matter how life appeared on the surface. Their faith influenced Regina as she watched them live their lives completely trusting in God’s promises. Regina committed her life to God at the age of sixteen under the leadership of her late father and pastor, Bishop Jesse Battle Sr. At her church, she served in many capacities, including being a Sunday school teacher, the financial secretary for her church, and youth president of her home church and her regional church organization. After her father passed and her church moved from the city limits, Regina and her family moved their membership to another church in the city of St. Louis. It was at that church she was encouraged by her pastor’s wife, Sheila Coleman, to teach regular series on financial stewardship. After being allowed that opportunity, Regina became passionate about encouraging other Christians to put their trust in God to handle and expand their finances by using biblical principles regarding financial stewardship. Regina became a certified Dave Ramsey financial counselor in 2016. Regina is a certified public accountant and practiced her profession more than thirty-four years before retiring from full-time work at the end of 2018. She has led the finance and human resources divisions of several organizations in St. Louis, Missouri. In retirement, she continues to teach accounting courses as an adjunct faculty member at one of the local universities and serves as a director on several not-for-profit boards. Regina and her husband, Craig Fowler, a financial professional also, have been married more than thirty-eight years and have two children, Erin Fowler, an attorney, and Andrew Fowler, a journalist.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-5150-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5152-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5151-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021924021

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/7/2022

Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, represented by Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Gratefulness Started with My Parents

Chapter 2 God’s Blessings from My Youth

Grateful for the Small Stuff

I Needed a Job: God Supplied It

The Small Offering That Would Not Stop Giving

Chapter 3 God’s Amazing Blessings during My College Years

Chapter 4 God’s Financial Blessings Throughout Our Lives

Employment Blunders: God Was Still There

Our Financial Journey (The Good, Bad, and Ugly)—But God Was There

Chapter 5 Testimonies of God’s Exceeding Abundant Blessings

Erin Goes to College and Law School

Law School

Andrew’s College and Graduate School Journey

God Steps in Because His Promises Are True

Our Dream House

Chapter 6 Key Financial Principle 1: Self-Management through Budgeting

Chapter 7 Key Financial Principle 2: Take Faith on Your Financial Journey

Chapter 8 Key Financial Principle 3: The Miracle of Giving

Chapter 9 Key Financial Principle 4: A Word to Married Couples

Appendix A: Needs, Obligations, Wants Worksheet

Appendix B: Ways to Earn More or Spend Less Money

Appendix C: Budget Management Reference Books

INTRODUCTION

Simply Grateful. What is this book about? It is my attempt to document God’s commitment to His promises of financial blessings shown to my family and me in response to our faithfulness to biblical financial principles. I originally set out to write a book about sound financial management using biblical principles. I started that book in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, I wrote the index, decided on the titles of each chapter, and wrote two and a half chapters. I did not add anything new to the book since the beginning of 2018. Other than the first two chapters, which were very personal, it seemed everything I planned to say had already been said by other authors who wrote on sound financial principles. However, one of the chapters I had written was a testimony of how God had blessed my family and allowed us to experience His exceeding abundant blessings that were beyond what we had expected from Him. After reading that chapter again in December 2019, I decided to write about God’s commitment to His promises of financial blessings. Thus, the title of this book, Simply Grateful.

I experienced extreme writer’s block on what I had previously started. After all, I’ve been reading financial management books using biblical principles since the 1980s. I have read Ron Blue, Larry Burkett, Dave Ramsey, and Joseph Sangl, just to name a few. While writing a book on sound financial management made sense for me as a Certified Public Accountant and a Dave Ramsey certified financial counselor, I did not find that I had anything new to say. The previous authors who I just named had already done an amazing job guiding people to successful financial management. Another reason I got stuck is the minimal success I was having encouraging people to move from poor financial management to biblical financial principles. Like many principles in the Bible, these principles work for Christians and non-Christians alike. Over the twenty years I have served as a financial counselor or teacher of biblical financial principles, only about 30 percent or so of those who I counseled or who attended the classes I taught stuck to the principles. Some would say that rate of success is not bad; but I would say it is not near the rate I had hoped for. Also, never has there been a time when those who were counseled or attended the classes said they found the information unusable. Most admit the information was useful, but they just could not commit to applying the principles.

I had a difficult time reconciling why so few followed the advice given. Then I realized most people did not stick to the practice of biblical financial principles long enough to understand that God is faithful to His promises concerning our good financial stewardship. So many were impatient. They wanted God’s response to their application of biblical principles to be immediate. Along my family’s financial journey, we also at times strayed away from the biblical financial principles, but God was merciful and consistent with His Word that said he would bless us based on our faithfulness to His way. It is because God has been and continues to be so faithful in His response to our application of financial biblical principles, despite our failures, I decided to write this book. The book takes a journey through our lives and how God fulfilled His promises as we became and remained faithful to His principles on finances. I want the readers to know that I am simply grateful to God for His compassion, mercy, and never-failing faithfulness to His promises. If instruction on being a good steward did not draw more people to manage their finances using biblical principles, I hope reading about God’s faithful response to those who follow biblical principles will.

Why Write This Book Now?

I retired from my last full-time job in December 2018 after almost nineteen years of service. I took the job to have a better work/life balance when my children were in fifth and third grades. It had been the perfect job for work/life balance. When my children got older, I began taking on increasing responsibilities. I started as Controller over finance only but ended up managing all of administration, including human resources, grants, and facilities. I enjoyed the increased responsibilities, but after twelve years working with the increased responsibilities, the work became less challenging at the quasi-government organization whose growth was limited by slow decisions and politics. I decided to retire and gave a year’s notice of my retirement. Other contributing factors that affected my decision to retire included my husband and I were debt-free and had been wise about saving for retirement. We were positioned so that both of us could retire, but my husband was not ready to retire, and he continued to see value in his contributions to the community through his work. I was grateful for that. We stayed on his company-sponsored health insurance and did not have to dip into our savings for health insurance.

Being retired presented another challenge for me. I was not quite sure what to do with my time. My daughter, who knew I had made attempts to write a book, suggested I give it another try in retirement. Before my retirement, I began to read my previous notes on the financial management book I attempted to write. What I loved most about it was a chapter I had written testifying of God’s goodness to my family for our faithfulness in honoring biblical financial principles. God had completely kept His end of the promise according to His Word. I was overwhelmed by His faithfulness. So, I decided to change the focus of my book to be about God’s consistency and faithfulness in fulfilling His promises to those who follow His guidance on giving and proper financial stewardship.

Before I started on my new book idea, I decided against it. I was not sure if anyone would care. But one Friday evening in January 2019, I was talking to a lady who could not work due to surgery. She shared with me that evening how she kept herself from being discouraged by writing down testimonies of how much God had blessed her financially while she was out of work. I decided at that moment if I wrote this book just to remind me of how good and faithful God is, that was enough. I want to always remain mindful of how God looks after my family and me. Lastly, two weeks after talking with the lady at church, my pastor said over the pulpit that someone should write a book giving testimonies about God’s faithfulness. I made the decision to write this book to encourage myself, and if it reaches a few people and encourages them, that is worth a million bucks to me.

Point of Clarification on God’s Blessings

Before I dive into the book, I must explain a phrase I use often throughout this book: exceeding abundantly. This phrase comes from Ephesians 3:20 (KJV), which says, Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. I often hear people quote this scripture using the word exceedingly instead of exceeding. There is a difference between these words. Exceedingly is an adverb, used to modify or qualify the word abundantly, which is also an adverb. When we quote this scripture and replace exceeding with exceedingly, we suggest the scripture is being repetitive by using both exceedingly and abundantly together. In other words, we translate the scripture to say God blesses us exceedingly and abundantly, both meaning God blesses us greatly. And He does bless us this way. However, the scripture actually use the word exceeding, which is an adjective, a word that is used to tell us more about the word or phrase it is modifying. The text uses exceeding to tell us more about the word abundantly. I do not believe the Bible was written to use these words interchangeably. The word exceedingly is used thirty-nine times in the Bible, based on my count. Exceeding, on the other hand, is used fifty-nine times according to my count, and in each case, it is used to tell us more.

I believe God inspired the writing of the Bible, and through His inspiration, the correct words were chosen at the correct times. This scripture is not simply saying God is able to bless us in a great way or with abundance; of course, He can and does. It is telling us that God is able to exceed what we as mere humans consider to be abundance. If we think what we have is an abundance, then we have fallen short on our understanding of what God can do. If we can imagine it, then God can exceed it. Therefore, after the phrase exceeding abundantly comes the phrase above all that we ask or think. God does not limit what He can do for us; only we can do that according to the power that worketh in us. In other words, only our level of faith in God limits how far He exceeds our expectations. Be clear: abundance is not just about how much money or material possessions we have; it’s more about the peace we can experience amid our abundance. For example, I would not want a house bigger than the one I have now (i.e., 3,700 square feet) because I would not find peace in maintaining such a large monstrosity. Something smaller than what I have would make more sense for my husband and me. On the other hand, a family who is committed to caring for foster children finds peace in having a much larger home to fulfill that ministry. So God is able to exceed our expectations based on the faith (i.e., power) we have in Him and His work in our lives. According to the Hebrew Roots in Wikibooks, Faith is the connecting power into the spiritual realm, which links us with God and makes Him become a tangible reality to the sense perceptions of a person. Our faith is the power that must work within us to receive that which exceeds our imagination of what abundance is.

It is with this understanding of the scripture and faith that I write this book. The stories I share are personal evidence that God goes well beyond our definition of abundance and instead responds to our faith in Him even when we cannot fully see what He has in store for us. I hope the readers of this book open their hearts and expand their faith to expect more from God by faith and then see Him respond beyond their expectations.

One Last Word

In this book, I share many stories about God’s blessings to my family and me. I tried to get the years and timelines exact; however, some of the timelines may be off a small amount. I could not remember the exact years of some of the events. However, all the stories are real and very personal. So, here I go.

1

GRATEFULNESS STARTED WITH MY PARENTS

Before I can speak boldly about God’s blessings over my life and the lives of my immediate family, I want to share why I am grateful for my parents. They taught me to be grateful for who I am and what I have and to be grateful to God for all things. My husband’s mother taught him the same.

While writing the initial draft of this book, I read the book Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan. The book’s premise is that ordinary people who manage their money wisely can become millionaires at some point in their lives. The book is an offshoot of The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. However, in Chris Hogan’s book, he attempts to dismiss some of the myths surrounding being and/or becoming a millionaire. Among the myths are that most wealthy people inherit their wealth from their parents, so they have a leg up on getting rich. I can tell you now that my parents were not rich, but I did have a leg up on life because of their faith in God.

My parents, who are now deceased, were both born in Mississippi. My parents collectively experienced everything we see in movies, talk shows, and television shows about the South and African American people between the 1920s to the 1960s and later—the time in which many Black people fled the South.