The Missionary and His Money — Bud Elford

Before I begin this morning, I should correct an error that I committed yesterday in the evening service. Jeff Littleton, who was also in Lausanne, reminded me that Pastor Juan Carlos Ortez was not from Chile, but he was from Argentina, and he's certainly correct.

And I just want you to know that I did know that, but I don't know what I was doing last night. Thanks Jeff. During these morning sessions, I'm going to be talking to you on different subjects directly related to missionary life.

And you may be wise, or it may be helpful to you, to take notes, because many of you here are going to be missionaries. And we can always value by what it took other people thirty years to learn or more.

This is why today we know so many of the wonderful truths of God, because men like Martin Luther went through what he did, and John Wesley went through what he did, and Jesse Penn Lewis and Evan Roberts went through what they did to teach us some of these great truths.

And we don't have to go through all the things they did to learn those truths. We should learn and enter into their labors. The message this morning, or the lecture, if you wish to call it that, is entitled The Missionary and Money.

Money as a Means of Missionary Provision

Now it's sad that we have to bring such a mundane thing into the spiritual atmosphere of chapel service, but it is true that you cannot carry on missionary work without money. You try it. It's wonderful to think you can.

So we need to take some very positive looks at how we handle money, and what is our attitude toward money, and how do we keep enough money flowing in, because the world certainly doesn't intend to give you any money to do the Lord's work.

This vile world isn't a friend of grace to help us unto God, and the government grants that may be available for other institutions of learning and other great projects, you can't tap into that supply.

But we have a vast supply, do we not? All right, I'll read you the lesson this morning. There was once a man who had a goose. She laid an egg every day. One day she laid a golden egg. The man went to town and sold the egg.

The next day the goose laid another golden egg. Wife said the man, we shall not be poor anymore. Every day he found a golden egg and sold it. Soon he was not content with this. Wife, he said, I shall kill this goose and get all the golden eggs at once.

So he killed the goose, but he found no golden eggs. The Ontario Reader, 1929. An egg a day represents poverty, doesn't it? Have you ever tried to live on an egg a day? But a golden egg a day represents enough, the right supply.

And then the lust of covetousness comes along, and we're not satisfied with that provision just enough every day. We want more. And so we kill that relationship. And the end to the supply comes. Some of you have read the article that my wife wrote in the Northern Lights a few years ago about her testimony about soap.

Trusting God for Daily Provision

When we first went to the North, our first mission station was Churchill, where we met Bill and Kay Linder and others from here, and where we first met Ted and Lucille. And one day an Indian lady came to our home just on Saturday evening and said, I would like to borrow a bar of soap.

I just have had a baby. We've just come home from the hospital, and I want to give the baby a bath. My wife looked, and she had one bar of soap left, and it was Saturday night. And in the old culture in the North, Saturday night meant bath night.

And she looked at that bar of soap, and she thought of her children that needed a bath. And then she thought of the Indian woman's desire to give her child a bath, and she said, all right, Lord, I'll give my bar of soap.

So she gave her last bar of soap to the Indian lady. And she said, Lord, you'll have to take care of the bath for the kids. While she was doing the dishes after supper, she opened a box of dry detergent soap for her dishes.

And on the outside, it said, free inside, one bar of soap. And she opened it, and she poured all the contents into several bowls to get to the bottom. And would you believe, there were two bars of soap in that box.

For the next 10 years, my wife never had to buy a bar of soap. People sent soap. Ladies' groups sent soap. She found soap. She won soap. She had soap, soap, soap. We may have lacked for water, but we never lacked for soap.

We had dishwashing soap, and we had clothes-washing soap, and nice-smelling soap, and gritty soap that would take the grease off, all kinds of soap. Then we moved to the Arctic. And down there, you have to buy your food a year at a time when the barge comes in, and the water, and the spring, and the river.

And she looked at her soap supply, and she just had that one golden egg left, you know. And she decided that perhaps she should order a year's supply of soap. So she ordered a year's supply of soap, and the soap stopped coming in.

And she has given this testimony many times as to the lessons of God's supply. He will do it either of two ways. He'll let you supply your own needs. He'll let you work, and slave, and worry. Or he'll supply a golden egg a day.

God is able to supply his children in the midst of any kind of circumstance, any kind of economy, and anywhere in the world. You're going to have to deal with the issue of money. You may not think, being at Bethany, that you will.

But it'll probably be more difficult for you than it will for many in other Bible schools where they must pay their tuition and have their meal tickets every day in the cafeteria. My oldest son, Rowan, had to meet the issue of money when he was in four years in Ontario Bible College.

He had $1 ,500 a year to pay for his tuition. And then he had to have a meal ticket every day. And he said, I learned to trust God for money. Along came Christmas time one year, and he had to have his semester's tuition paid by Christmas time or couldn't come back for the second semester.

And he owed $50. And one of his friends came to him and said, Rowan, when are you going to start doing something about your tuition? He says, I am. I'm praying. And he said, well, when are you going to start doing something practical?

He said, what could be more practical than praying? We were on our way down. And as we were visiting an old lady on the way down, she gave us an envelope to give to him and had $50 in it. He went all through four years like that.

There in the mission field, he said, we have never, from the time we learned to trust him, had to worry as long as we were willing to go on the supply just at the time when it was needed. The golden egg a day.

Money, Covetousness, and Missionary Support

How many of us let covetousness, the lack of faith, enter in? You are going to need money. And you're going to need the right attitude about money. And you're going to need to know, even if you are working under an organization who provides your food and provides your transportation, you're going to need to have the right attitude about money or covetousness will come in and it'll ruin you.

We had a president of the Bible school where I attended. And he used to, in pastoral theology, drill it into our minds. He said, young men, he said, the enemy will get you in one or two areas if you do not walk with God.

He'll either get you through immorality or through the love of money. And how true it is, how many servants of God have fallen through the love of money as well as through falling into immoral sins. Raising and maintaining sufficient support is a spiritual issue for a missionary.

Settle the issues about money in your prayer closet. I remember getting a letter from Perryman in England a number of years ago, I guess it is. And he said, I just had to face it one day. I didn't have enough money to do what I thought God wanted me to do.

Now, God intends that you do have enough money to do his will. We ought to regard people not as those who can help us, but as ones that God motivates one way or the other. Be careful of your attitude of expecting things from people.

It's wrong to expect things from people. You'll learn it as you go around as a missionary. And some churches are rich, and they won't give you enough to pay your gas to get there. My wife and I went to a place one time and traveled a couple of hundred miles to get there and to go back.

And after ministering there and showing slides, they took up a nice collection. And then they voted on what they'd do with it, and they sent it to Africa. And we didn't have enough money in our gas tank to go back.

You must watch your attitude and say, amen. That wasn't the goose. And you have to be careful of your attitude towards people, because the Lord is the one that's providing. We always remind our missionary candidates that they are responsible also to be thankful to those who provide their needs.

And remember, too, that money is just a means to an end. It is necessary, but it is not the end. It's not something to keep. It's not something to hang on to. Money in this world was made for one reason, to spend.

You're going to walk on it in heaven. You're not going to spend any money in heaven. Might as well spend it. Spend it wisely, but spend it. I had a millionaire tell me, he said, my sons have all the money they need, both of them, he said.

And my wife and I decided we're going to spend all our money before we die. I said, wonderful. Boy, you know, that go a long way. OK, point number one. That was a long introduction, wasn't it? Tithing, do you know anything about it?

Tithing is the way to start to learn to give. Now, why do I talk about giving when I'm talking about money? Because if you don't know how to give, you will never know the joy of God's giving you. Missionaries have to learn how to give.

You have to be generous. Tithing is a fixed law of the universe. All you have to do is read about Eden. It began a way back there. The 10th belongs to God. Malachi 3 .8, we can't afford to touch the 10th.

And I don't think it only means money. Try tithing your time. Try giving God two hours and 40 minutes a day for devotion and prayer and praising and rejoicing and see if he doesn't bless you and pour into the store out of your heart blessings.

Hail and drought and grasshoppers, worms consume 1 10th of all farmers' crops today. Would that lead you to the conclusion that not all farmers are tithing? God will get his 10th, one way or the other.

Israel spent 70 years in Babylon paying back what they owed God. Remember, it belongs to him. It's not that you're giving him something. It's simply giving his share. Because since you're redeemed by the blood, in the Old Testament, the blood owned everything it purchased, it claimed what it cleansed.

And you can't claim cleansing without the ownership of God being stamped upon you. And that means your money, too. Learning to give is a great lesson. Learning to give to people who can't repay. Learning to give to those who you know aren't going to pay back.

When I was in Brochet, the second mission station we were in, the Lord taught us how to give. He was pushing this verse down into us. Give, Luke 6 38. Give, hoping for nothing in return, and man shall give to you.

Pressed down, shaken together, and running over. I had misinterpreted that verse because I thought it meant that the ones you gave to would give back to you. They'd pay it back and say, I'm so glad you gave it to me.

Here it is back again, and twice as much. That isn't what it means at all. It doesn't necessarily mean the same person will give back to you at all. Someone else. I can remember when the Lord was pushing this down into me, he said, give.

Some of our missionaries had said, don't bother giving to the Indians because then they won't come back because they'll feel they owe you money and you'll lose friends. But the Bible said to give. So I thought I would listen to God instead of to the missionaries.

And I had three barrels of gasoline. And the Indians started coming to borrow my gasoline. And I loaned it. And I had a little book. I think I still have it. I wrote down Albert Deneganaza, five gallons of gas.

Louis Denecheta, 10 gallons of gas. Eugene Bononi, three gallons of gas. And every time they came, I give. I said, Lord, I'll give it all away. You'll see. We won't have any gas for our washing machine and for our gas light and for our outboard motor or for our skidoo.

And we won't be able to travel. And I gave and I gave and I gave till I give a 90 gallons away. And I only had 45 gallons left. And we didn't have much of that because it was wintertime and we were using it for our gas lantern and for our washing machine and for the iron.

Everything ran on gas and our light plant. And then the spring came and the ice broke in the lake. And I went across the lake to a fish camp. The man wasn't a Christian. He practiced black magic, to be true.

He was a Laplander. And when I came over there the second time, I came along. And he said to me, hey, we'd like you to come over here. He said, you don't need to ever buy gas when you come over here. He said, and bring your can and bring a big can and fill it up every time you come.

And so for the next four years, I took my big can and I filled it up. And I filled up my tank and my outboard motor. And I filled up the tank in my skidoo. And all the time in those four years were there, this guy poured back into my tank the gas that the others had taken out.

And God poured back in. And I didn't count it. But I know it was two or three times more than 90 gallons. The same was true of food. They would come to borrow food. My wife, on one occasion, ran a store right next door to us.

It was called the Brochet Trading Post. It wasn't much of a trading post. It was a log cabin. You could buy anything from beach balls to moccasins. And you could put your quarter in the jukebox. And she'd go out and crank up the light plant and give you a song.

And my wife ran that one fall while the lady was out. It was a Ukrainian lady ran this trading post. And my wife said, what's the price in all this stuff? She said, oh, just what you think. Boy, was there ever a sale on it.

She didn't think some of the stuff was worth very much. And she sold it quite cheaply. But the Indians would come in and want to get debt. And debt means credit to them. So they could go to their trap lines.

And because the lady had told my wife not to give them debt, she would take them home to our place. And out of our year's supply of things, she would be giving them out to the Indians. And so we ran out of groceries.

And so we said, Lord, our groceries are just about all gone. We'll have to get some. So we went out to Lynn Lake, where Dick Linder was ministering at the time. We bought some groceries. And how are we going to get it in?

And along came this Laplander again, this man that practiced black magic. And he came and he filled up a whole Norseman full of groceries. And he flew it right in, way past his fish camp, landed it right at our place, and unloaded it.

How wonderfully God gives when you learn how to give. Luke 6, 38, give. Be generous. Proverbs says, a generous soul shall grow fat. Maybe we don't want to grow fat today. But it was a Bible expression of having plenty.

Giving Beyond the Tithe

All right, point two, beyond the tithe. Tithing is a good way to begin how to give. But if you only know how to tithe, you don't know how to give. After a while, tithing stops you from giving properly after you've learned.

I can remember when we used to tithe. We'd get our $100 a month as missionaries. And we'd put $10 in that jar. And when the $10 was given, that's all we could give. Sorry, Lord, your jar is empty. And then we found out that you don't have to have money to love it.

Luke 16, remember the Pharisees? They scoffed at Jesus when he told them the story about make yourself be careful about the mammon of riches. 1 Timothy 6 .10, Hebrews 13 .5, keep yourselves free from the love of money.

And I thought, only rich people love money. But there's a great number of missionaries who have problems because they love money. And it's terrible to see poor people in love with money. And a missionary should deal with it.

It's not enough just to say, oh, that won't happen to me. You must set it right before you on your altar at prayer time and say, Lord, I choose to take the money you give me and claim all the money I need, but never to love it.

That's a hopeless thing to love. You start loving money, and you'll get like money, hard or crinkly. I learned a lesson at Churchill. Oh, you know the mission field's a great place to learn lessons. When you get out there all by yourself, particularly if there's no telephone and no communications and you really need some help and you can't go to Brother So-and-so and you can't get back to the Bible school, then all you got left is heaven.

Isn't that too bad? All we got is the source. And so we can go to the source, and we can learn things. And I had to learn something. I started, I heard a testimony from a missionary that they don't tithe anymore.

They gave everything to the Lord. And when their money comes in, they use what they need, and they give what the Lord wants to him. I said, that doesn't sound very good to me. And then I read about David Brainerd.

David Brainerd dying down there in the bush of the New England states of tuberculosis, wrestling against those powers of darkness, didn't even know what he was up against. He was able to say, I gave 3 quarters of my allowance this month to the needy, to the Lord's work.

And I thought, how could he do that? And then I read F .B. Meyer's testimony, how he had learned that tithing was a hindrance to giving after you had learned how to give. And he said he gave everything to the Lord.

Then along came a fellow missionary. He says, oh, no, he said. And this fellow missionary looked like he lived lavishly, seemed to have new stuff in his home, new tape recorder, new table, new chairs, and new clothes.

But then he just seemed to give it away when he left. And so one day I said, all right, Lord. And I said to my wife, we're not going to tithe anymore. When our allowance comes, we're not going to put $10 in there.

We're going to lay the whole $100 on the desk and say, Lord, it's all yours. If we need some, we'll take it. And if you need some, you can have it. We're as much yours as the tenth provided, reaching the conclusion that I belong to him, too.

So the entirety belonged to him. So we gave it to God and refused to hang on to things. You know, that is a deeper work in your heart than you might think. It's a deeper work to get rid of these earthly things than you might think at the start.

2 Peter 3 .10 talks about the earth and the works therein going to be burned up. And that certainly includes money. Well, we said, all right. And do you know that that first year, that very first year, that we gave away more than what we kept to keep us running?

And that same year, we got a new typewriter. And we got a new engine for our motor toboggan. And we got a new track. And we got some more stuff to go around it. And I don't know what else new we got. But how do you explain that you don't?

Because you're just jumping into the circle of God's supply. And we went from egg Christians to golden egg Christians. And the supply was always enough for every need. There is giving beyond the tithe.

And you have to learn about it. And this is what it is. Press down, shaken together and running over. And you'll find when you go on to this kind of living. Now, you have to learn this. God will lead you to it in his own time.

But there is giving beyond the tithe. So many of our missionaries have a miserable attitude, a poverty-stricken attitude. Russ Broadhead, who is with the mission that Dick Linder used to be with, needed an airplane or said he needed an airplane.

I don't know anything about that. But he told the Lord he wanted an airplane. And he ordered one, a brand new mall, someplace down in Nebraska. And so after about a year, the company wrote to him or wired to him and said, your airplane is ready.

And he had been trusting in the inheritance that came from his mother's will to provide for down payment on an airplane. Well, inheritance got all tangled up. And it came out zilch. There was nothing to it.

And he said, wow, I don't have any money. And so he headed for Nebraska anyway. And we got down there. And just before he went to the factory to pick up his aircraft, a farmer said to him, say, you sent in a letter that you were going to get an aircraft.

He said, do you have any money? Well, he said, not really. So he said, how much is it going to be? Well, he said, I'm getting 10 off. He said, so it would be $21 ,000. The farmer said, OK. So he took him to the bank.

And the farmer borrowed $21 ,000, gave him a check for $21 ,000. And he went out and paid cash for the mall. And it's sitting up there right on one of the farms right by Cold Lake. He said, I had promised the Lord I would get rid of a poverty attitude.

I can remember coming to conference with a new pair of yellow boots, Kodiak boots, and a missionary saying to me, how can a missionary have new boots? I said, I asked the Lord for them. He gave them to me.

You can have a lot of things. And you can have a lot of nice things if you don't have any hold on them. It's always amazing in our house when we get something new how the Lord lets get a scratch in it, or a dinge in it, or something in it just to put his mark on it.

And my wife got a new vacuum cleaner. And I was using it. Of course, the Lord isn't careful sometimes who he uses to put his mark on things. And I said, the Lord has his mark on your vacuum cleaner. She said, she didn't say anything.

She's getting used to it now. Not to me doing it, but there's always a mark on it. She had a new washing machine one time. And it sat in Churchill for a whole year. We didn't have any power while she scrubbed on the scrub board.

And I helped her wring it out. And then along came the time when we got some power over across on some two-by-fours. And we laid the washing machine down on the floor to put the casters on it. There was just one stone in the whole house.

And the washing machine laid on that little pebble. It made a nice little round seal right on the side of it until we knew it belonged to the Lord. How good it is to use all these things and remember to whom they belong.

Praying for Finances and Supporting Supporters

Number three, praying for finances. God has promised that you should have enough for every need and for every good work. We shouldn't only have enough for our needs. You know, we should have enough to give people something when we need it.

Oh, it's good to be able to give. It's a wonderful ministry. And missionaries can enter into that ministry of giving. But we should have enough for every need. And we shouldn't go around the country looking like we didn't have enough.

Because God can provide. Dr. Hooper, our dean in Bible school, he's a missionary that was in the revivals back in the early days in Ethiopia. He said he used to tell about ladies used to come into his office and be fingering her their threadbare coat and say, yes, we're just living on faith, you know.

No, that isn't the golden egg type of living, is it? But at the same time, God can give you things wonderfully well that seem to fit all right and just provide. When I came to Bethany last night, the most expensive thing I had on was my tie.

Somebody had given me my jacket and somebody had given me my vest. And I got the shirt for $0 .15 down in World Visions in Toronto. And the same thing. And God says you'll have enough for every need. And he is careful sometimes that you learn humility in getting it.

And you can get some wonderful things from the missionary barrel that fit right in. However, I went to Wheaton two years ago to their Mission Emphasis Week. And they sent out a letter on how to dress.

And they said, please, no clothes from the missionary barrel. We don't want our missionaries to look dowdy. We want them to look like the Lord can provide. Of course, they don't know the missionary barrel has really improved in these last two or three years.

God has promised that. Therefore, you need to go into his presence and say, my father, I need something. And I related to you, I think, two years ago about when I was coming to your missionary conference here two years ago.

And I needed a suit. So the Lord and I went shopping in Lloydminster. And we bought a real nice suit. It's not very bright with today's fashion. But two years ago, it was quite bright. And he arranged that I had enough money that I'd made a mistake so I had enough money left to pay for it.

And so God has promised, so we should claim. Kenyon, who has written several books, but one entitled New Creation Realities, said, I belong to God. And he said, I rely on the fact that he has committed to me his business.

And I am his servant. And I have every right to use his resources so that when I have a need, I just say, Lord, send some of your spirits out and get me this. I need it. Oh, you know, we live so far beneath our potential as children of God, praying for these things.

As well as God's promise and as well as asking God for the things you need, there are spirits of finance that do several things. They discourage you from asking. They tie up Christian money in all sorts of harebrained activity.

Then there's something else you have to, as well as God's promise and as well as asking God for the things you need, there are spirits of finance that do several things. They discourage you from asking.

They tie up Christian money in all sorts of harebrained activity so that more money is available for the Lord's work. And you have to be in prayer for those who are supporting you and say, Lord, deliver them from the spirits of finance that would cause them to go into all kinds of financial ventures, which would use up their money and tie up their money, which won't make it available for the work.

And so you can pray for your supporters that way. We were in prayer at one time in the north. We needed an airplane. And we were asking the Lord to supply the money for a new 180, or a 180. It wasn't a new one.

And as we were praying, our prayers were reaching out in every direction. And they reached down to a place called Wellesley, Ontario, where a Christian businessman was just in the process of spending several thousand dollars to buy a new piece of land and to start a new investment.

And when the prayers started falling around him from heaven, they go up heaven and back, you know. Then he said to his wife, what are we buying this land for? We don't need this. And he said, we don't need more work.

We're busy enough. He said, we just might get all tied up in this new venture. And I might have a heart attack. And I might die and leave you with it. We might as well not spend that money. And then came the letter telling him about the need of an airplane.

And they said, oh, that's where they need the money. And so your prayers can keep your Christian supporters from tying up their money foolishly. And not only tying it up foolishly, but getting it loosed in all sorts of ventures.

Canadian Bible College, the day before yesterday, took me on a tour of their new buildings that they're putting up to house the new students that are coming in. They said, now, it's being paid for in rather a funny way.

Someone gave us a lot of land way down in California, which we have to sell so we have enough money to build up here. But they prayed that egg loose down there. And this is the way you have to do when you're praying.

And spirits of the devil tie up Christians in all sorts of enterprises, keeping their money tied up. And this is an active part of missions. So when I was a young missionary, I'd only been on the mission field all for a few years.

And it was before, or rather around the very same time that we were learning about money. And there was an old lady that used to come. I think she's Laura's grandmother, Mrs. Somerville. Is that right, Laura?

Where are you? Is she? Right, she's Laura's grandmother. Oh, she was one of the prayer warriors that got Northern Canada Evangelical Mission rolling. She used to pray. And oh, she got things going. Coming up on the bus one time from Battleford, and when I had taken a 900-mile trip to get to conference, hitchhiked all the way.

I was riding the bus the last way, and she was on the bus and a bunch of other missionaries going to conference. And she had just learned this song, How Great Thou Art. It was new to me. And she was insistent that I teach it to the missionaries.

So she insisted that while we were riding on the bus, we learn it. And when she started shaking her long finger in your nose, then you responded. And maybe Laura's had this happen. But I can remember one summer, and we were meeting in a tent.

Our dining hall was in a tent. And I was talking to her about money. And she backed me up against the middle pole of the tent, and she came real close with her blue eyes and her finger. And she said, young man, until you learn to pray and overcome the demons of finance, you'll never have enough money.

I never forgot that. I entered into a warfare, and I've always had enough money. I don't always have money, but I always have enough. You know, if you've used up the golden egg from the day before, you might not have one at the moment, but they'll always be there when you need it.

And I don't have any money in my pocket, any coins. You know why? Bill Jackson is a fellow on our mission, and he was lecturing. He's an Indian. And we get him to talk to us sometime at conference about what things we're doing wrong to the Indians.

Well, he said, when we're speaking to them, he said, well, the first thing you're doing wrong, he said, when you stand up in front of an Indian audience to preach, he said, you should never jingle the coins in your pocket, because they're not listening to what you say.

They're thinking how much they can borrow from you after the service. And so I don't keep any jingling coins in my pocket. So the spirits of finance are something you're going to have to deal with. They're in the world, and you have to deal with them.

And there's enough for yourself and enough to give to the saints. After we had learned to start giving, we had moved to another mission field down in the Arctic at the time, and I had sold the boat and motor when I left Brochet, and I had about $400 in the bank.

We had paid our way down there, and we had a little bit of money. And I came out to conference, and when I was in conference, the Indian Bible School at Island Lake didn't have any food for that summer.

And the Lord said, well, I need that money. And so I just wrote him a check for it, because we had made the agreement that if he needed, he could have it, and if I needed, I could have it. We don't bother about worrying whether we've done the tithe or overcome the tithe or not had the tithe.

The Lord and I have it together, you see, and if I need it, I can have it, and if he wants it, he can have it. And he needed it, so I gave it to him. And my wife said, hey, when I came home, we had Rowan in high school at the time at Briarcrest, and she said, we owe $800 for the tuition.

Said, are you gonna send a check for part of it? And I said, well, the Lord needed it. He took it, but I gave it to him. I agreed with him. I mean, he didn't take it against my will. But at the same time, although we had paid all the money to go down there, by that Christmas, we had his whole tuition paid, and we had our whole year's supply of groceries paid for, and I had enough money left over to put a down payment on a motor toboggan to use down there in that area.

Oh, how wonderful our God is when you are willing to walk along with him who provides the golden egg, just as you need it day by day. And it helps to have a wife that knows how to pray, too. All right, number four, learning to receive gifts.

Learning to Receive Gifts with Humility

Now, it's a real difficult task for a lot of Christians, a lot of missionary kids, who have, to begin with, earned their own money, and then to turn around and have to live off the gifts of others. Of course, it's just pride, because God is giving you a gift even when you work for it.