The wages of debt By John W. Kennedy Worrying about money is an easy thing to do. But it seems the more we are consumed with wondering if we’ll have enough money, the more dire the situation becomes. We can’t really improve our finances by stewing over the situation. God doesn’t want us to be anxious about finances. Everything belongs to God anyway. We are just stewards. If we truly recognize that God owns everything we have, He has a way of providing in unexpected ways. My family has had its ups and downs with money. At one point, we had thousands of dollars in consumer credit debt. We didn’t live luxuriously. We didn’t buy a yacht or a summer home or go on an around-the-world cruise. Rather, we lived in the expensive Chicago suburbs, where I went off to work and my wife stayed home with three children. We kept getting deeper and deeper in the hole, eventually putting everything from clothes to groceries on a charge card. My wife became quite ill for several years and medical bills compounded our debt problem. Finally we had to face reality. We couldn’t keep up on the minimum payments on half a dozen credit cards. We got help. Slowly we paid them off one at a time. Satan wants us to be in debt, because it’s a way he keeps us from being effective. If we’re paying much of what we earn to a credit card company, it’s hard to be generous with the Lord’s work. I look back at the hundreds of dollars we paid in interest over the years and shudder. Yet we don’t have credit card debt anymore. Sometimes that means foregoing fancy meals I may want to eat, concerts I might want to attend, or trips I would like to take. But that’s OK. I remember when I paid off the last debt and calling the company to cancel the credit card. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the man on the other end of the line said. He sounded as though someone in my immediate family had just died. Of course he wanted to know why — and what he could do to change my mind. He didn’t seem to understand I had grown weary of paying interest fees. “How about if we lower your interest rate?” he asked. “No thanks,” I said. “How about if we make your card interest free for six months?” he asked. When I saw he had a whole bag of tricks designed to sucker me back in, I firmly told him to cancel the card. The buy now, pay later philosophy can cause years of hurt, as Scripture tells us. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (NIV). In Philippians 4:12, Paul writes, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” That’s good advice to remember.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 11:00:00 +0000
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