As the proliferation of companies and organization that support abortion and fetal cell research has increased, my spending habits have changed intensely. So important is it to me to not actively and deliberately fund abortion that I have found new eating habits and diligently searched for new favorite jeans. My hotel selections have changed, and so have my airlines—and my heart.

Many people think I’m wasting my time, being too legalistic, that it’s not really making a difference. I’ve written before about the heart attitudes behind this, likening it to fasting rather than boycotting (you can read that here). Lately I’ve been pondering the idea of actual dollars and what that might look like in Heaven.

The numbers here are purely imagination because these are totals we’ll never know, but real money is involved in all our earthly purchase. So let’s pretend that I don’t buy a bottle of Nestle water because of the company’s tie to fetal cell research, and maybe that kept a tenth of a penny from going into the profit of the shedding of innocent blood. So what, right? But what does that look like over a lifetime? A fraction of a cent here, a dollar there in organizational dues or hotel or airline purchases, PayPal fees, and on and on until we reach our 70 or 80 years (psalm 90). And then what if we saw the totals:

Susan Tyrrell, your choice to not fund abortion and its related research resulted in $4587 being kept from that industry.

Exaggerated you say? How about I move the decimal and it becomes $458.70? The average abortion cost is around $450. What if I make years of inconvenient decisions like this and it only results in taking $458.70 from the abortion industry?

How much is a life worth?

Sometimes I picture bank ledgers and wonder what mine would say. I try to not focus on what the ledger or bloodguilt might look like—how much did I contribute to abortion by my earthly consumerism?

Last December, we ran a story on a Bible that funded the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which gives money to Planned Parenthood. That story went to many news outlets and resulted in the Bible publishers realizing the controversy and pulling it. It resulted in money that was kept from the profit off that—we suddenly got a picture of the real financial impact. In actuality, it was probably a small amount in Planned Parenthood’s bigger financial scheme. But it was real money that may have been freed up for abortion by the other donations.

Clearly, I am imagining numbers we can’t every know this side of eternity. My point isn’t to assert that by not buying Nestle products I’ve saved a baby’s life. My point is that the Lord really knows how much our small yes to His desires for LIFE add up on this earth. The same God who talked to Ezekiel about the bloodguilt in the land in Ezekiel 22, announced“Behold, therefore, I beat My fists at the dishonest profit which you have made, and at the bloodshed which has been in your midst” (Ezekiel 22:13).

God still hates the shedding of innocent blood, and, while certainly there is mercy for those who turn to Jesus, the land is still profiting off the shedding of innocent blood, our nation and businesses have not yet repented. It is my deep conviction that money matters to God, that money funneled to places that support abortion matters to God.  There is too much in the Bible on financial matters for me to be able to dismiss it in regards to abortion funding.

I don’t know what my ledger in Heaven could look like if God were to reveal to me how much money I prevented the abortion industry from having by my diligent purchase (or lack thereof), but I know it would have something on it. I know that every time I say yes to LIFE, even by refusing a bottle of water, He is honored. My position in heaven isn’t contingent upon buying a bottle of water or some imaginary heavenly tally, but my heart’s ability to love God deeper in this age is impacted by making decisions based on the vision He’s given me for LIFE.

That’s’ a ledger that has a lot of profit.