Needing some motivation?

This is what I listen to more often than not on Fridays...

Listen to the voices... Listen to the exuberance. Can you hear the emotion?!! I get teared up every time I listen to this stuff... ...because debt suffocates the joy from living, from loving, from giving and freedom to be generous - like our Father - is something that no one but the free understand.

Sin does the same thing, only the debt is eternal until it's paid in full. God has a get-out-of-debt-plan that is unbeatable. His Son paid for our sins. It was so costly that there is only one way to pay that debt - only One person in the entire universe had the "funds" for that bailout! If you think that financial debt is looming large in your life, then consider the weight of your sin debt... Pray to God, repent from "your way"? His kind of change is even deeper than the kinds of changes you hear in this clip...

If you do have financial debt, or you are in trouble, then first take that to God. The numbers may not add up right now, but He has a way of providing when we honor Him with our lives. His favorite pastime is redeeming the hopeless... I hope that you will seek the help of your pastor, or attend a Financial Peace University class, tune in to the daily Dave Ramsey shows and commit to align your life spiritually and financially with the Word of God...

Plastectomy... (plagerism?)

I think Dave Ramsey invented the term... He uses it as a one-word description of cutting up one's credit cards forever. Dave uses scissors. His audiences get a little more creative... ...chainsaws, guns, shredders... ...you get the idea that people are a little fed up with the little plastic cards that we have been indoctrinated into believing are a way of life in our culture. It is a passionate, emotional, even merciless occasion.

So, why the extreme behavior? In short, many thousands of people have had an eye opening experience by going through Dave's classes or listening to his show. They have begun to understand that the bank (creditor) is selling a product, and are making a profit on the customer (the lender).

We watched as Dave on stage animated the average customer walking into the bank on his knees begging, "Please, please, please, Mr. banker let me have some...." (If only we had a product like that, huh?)

And all that time we thought we were being smart. We thought that it was intelligent to use "Other Peoples' Money (OPM)" but later we find that we had become addicted and enslaved to it. What we once thought was OK had become the the Master of our money, instead of us mastering our own money.

Proverbs 22:7 (New International Version)

7 The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is servant to the lender.

I hear all the time, "I use a card, but I pay it off every month." I can't help but remember that I talked myself into the credit cards with that phrase in mind.

And I had good reason. In fact, Larry Burkett said that if you had or used a credit card, fine, but the first month that you fail to pay it in full, then you should cut it up. Given that somewhere between %80 and %90 of us who use a credit card do not actually pay it in full, I have changed my mind.

The banks know that most of us will not do it - and they make a LOT of money on credit. I am told that Sears, Penny's, GM, Ford and Chrysler have all become creditors more than retailers - they make more oney on credit than in sales of all of their other products.

It doesn't matter to me any more that you can pay it off every month. There are two reasons. The first is that the Bible says that debt is a bad idea - even for a day.

Proverbs 6:4-5 (New International Version)

4 Allow no sleep to your eyes,
no slumber to your eyelids.

5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

The second reason is that there is a risk that you take when you use the credit card. The biggest part of that risk is that you are gambling that your next paycheck will be full and on time. The rest is that you are dealing with a company that employs a lot of lawyers to write a lot of fine print that I doubt you or anybody else can readily explain.

They can and do "lose" payments in the system, which means that it arrives late and then they proceed to raise your rates to %24 or more and dock you for a $29 late fee! They guess rightly that most people won't go to the mat over a $29 fee.

(Guess who's had this happen to him before - I was mad. It was the first time that lost my temper with a stranger on the phone. I did get the charge removed and got the interest down again after I threatened to "surf" the balance to another card... This was before I knew anything about Dave Ramsey, though and I didn't learn my lesson then.)

There is congressional testimony regarding this fraud, yet we hear little about it, and we continue to "do business" with companies that are dishonest. This is not intelligent. It is not even convenient when you consider the possible problems. Fire them. Cut the cards. End the risk and be a steward of your money.

Debit cards are somewhat different. They draw directly from your checking account, but that brings risks of its own. At least you aren't in debt to anyone though.

We take the additional precaution of keeping seperate checking accounts. We only use the debit card for one of the accounts, so that in the event of a problem (in which the bank will often "freeze" the money) we still have money to draw for gas and groceries. We also use it for Internet purchases, transferring the budgeted money for such transactions.

Many debit cards (such as those that have the little "Visa" symbol in the corner) have the same protection as credit cards and they are useful for car and room reservations too.

BUT, whatever the version of plastic you take to the register, there are recognized studies showing that we spend %12-%18 more with plastic than with cash. That means that when we go to Home Cheapo for a $50 widget, we also add a $6.00-$9.00 widget accessory.

On the other hand, if you walk in to the appliance store with $450.00 cash, you have a tool with which to get a bargain! You might get a $500.00 Wash-O-Matic for the cash you have to wave at the sales person and get a deal. This is the complete opposite of what you get when you have a plastic budget. GO GREEN!

(Be willing to walk away - you might have to go to 3 different appliance stores or get to a manager to get a deal, but then isn't that worth $50?!!)

I will start working on describing the cash envelope system that Dave Ramsey, Larry Burkett and Larry's grandmother recommend on the next post or two. I hope that you are starting to see the "personal" part of personal finance in the meantime. It is emmotional, spritual and even physical. It is important.

God Bless!

Enough

"I've had ENOUGH!"

"It's enough…"

"It's not enough…"

"It's NEVER enough!"

On an on… There are a lot of ways to think of "enough". I am looking at "enough" as it relates to finances… Why? Because I've had ENOUGH! I've had enough of the lies and the chains that I chose to believe… I did the deed. It is nobody else's fault. "I signed up for the ride…" and I intend to do everything I can to convince you that it is not worth it.

Speaking of enough… do you have enough? With regard to wealth I want to share this passage in Ecclesiastes 5

Ecclesiastes 5:10-18 (New International Version)

10 Whoever loves money never has money enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
This too is meaningless.

So, have you found "enough", or like the verse above, are you on a wild goose chase? I suspect that if you are anything like me, you have never met a paycheck that you just couldn't quite spend… or a great deal that you could walk away from. I suspect that like me, you never quite found that the next new toy was actually "enough?" It got home and we had fun, the toy and I for about five minutes?

Well, that's how I used to be. I found another way to "enough" that is healthy. It started when I realized that the crazy dude on the radio was right and I knew I was not obeying Scripture.

"…The borrower is servant to the lender…" Now, I know that it is a Scripture and I knew it before, but I never really heard it like that – ENOUGH!!! Enough spending, debt, slavery… my desires had turned my finances, our finances, into an unwieldy, unyielding maze of chains and fetters. Enough of this idea that I can justify spending without a plan. Enough of the arguments. Enough of the fights. Yell it at yourself, "ENOUGH!!!!" and you might get how fed up I had gotten.

I convinced my wife to go to a session with the crazy dude in Spokane… with about 3,000 people just like us. She came with no small amount of coaxing from me, but I think that I finally convinced her with a promise to stop with the "Dave says…" and the brow-beating. (Guys, Scriptures, even with the best of intentions, must be presented differently than the way I did it…) For five hours, Dave talked to us about life and money, re-aligning our thinking and giving us a glimmer of hope. We sat in the car for a moment, and looking at each other knew that we could do this. We'd had ENOUGH…

That was May 2003 if I recall. We were both working, and were barely making the bills from month to month. We could not breathe financially and the stress from this was eating our marriage alive. I know that the process that we went through after that night was not only marriage strengthening. Within three years we had survived a number of $1,200 unexpected expenses, had two babies, gone down to one income and paid off well in excess of $18,000 of credit card, auto and student loans.

There is a process that works, and then there is "normal". Normal in our culture is broke. Normal in our culture says, "…but I need…" Normal is as much mortgage payment as you can afford. Normal is two weeks of unemployment from financial disaster.

Proverbs 14:12 (New International Version)

12 There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.

So, if normal is broke, what got into me to allow myself to violate God's own word?! I knew that I shouldn't. I knew the Bible said to stay out of debt… What was the deal with that!

The blunt answer is that I had simply ignored the Godly input of teachers, the admonitions of my parents and the very word of God itself… Easier to see it that way now than then, because then it seemed like the only option at the time. The car needed fixed, so I put the charge on my account. I could pay off the newer car in a couple months, what's a few dollars of interest? One transaction at a time, I justified the debt, like the story of boiling the frog slowly; I nearly destroyed our financial and married future by trusting my own senses, all the while slowly adding stress to everything.

You may think that debt is OK. You may not think it has a strangle hold on you, that you are different in this case or that, but my friend, this is exactly how "normal" now has the same meaning as broke. It is not OK. Your good credit score is not God's answer to your prayers. Your credit card is not an emergency fund, it is a temptation waiting to catch you at a weak moment.

I have news for you if you think you are different: Like the first taste of beer, the first hit of weed, nobody really thinks that he or she is going to be an addict – a slave to their own passions. Yet, while the numbers for alcohol alone are staggering, they pale in comparison to the financial disasters that have destroyed homes and lives.

Finances are said to be the number one reason for divorce in first marriages. Larry Burkett wrote in one of his books that he believed that it was because the young married kids want to live at the comfort level that they grew up and left - just like their parents live. The only thing is... ...it took their parents thirty years to get there.

Money, finances are not the trouble - these are tools - it is the mistakes, immaturity and indiscipline that hurts us. We think that getting stuff will bring joy and happiness, so we sacrifice our freedom one transaction at a time. Marriages and families are being ruined on the alter of stuff... ...more bluntly the debt, the sacrifice that we make to get that stuff.

Proverbs 6

Warnings Against Folly

1 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
if you have struck hands in pledge for another,

2 if you have been trapped by what you said,
ensnared by the words of your mouth,

3 then do this, my son, to free yourself,
since you have fallen into your neighbor's hands:
Go and humble yourself;
press your plea with your neighbor!

4 Allow no sleep to your eyes,
no slumber to your eyelids.

5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

One of Dave's most invigorating rants is based on the passage shown above. RUN… Run like your life depends upon it!!!

The next verse begins to delve into diligence and hard work, saving for the future. Why? Because that rainy day fund will become necessary not "if" but "when" it rains. People that I talk to sometimes mention a credit card that they keep for emergencies like it is some little exotic pet that they keep in a cage just for emergencies… It is a snake that will bite you, get rid of the thing! Get your own emergency fund… Save something from your paycheck while you can. Then when the paycheck doesn't come in you have a mortgage payment or two and some grocery money while you work on the next job.

Proverbs 22:3 (New International Version)

3 A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge,
but the simple keep going and suffer for it.

I shudder to think what God would have to say about someone like me, who having been warned, just hid my eyes from the danger!

Proverbs 21:20 (New International Version)

20 In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil,
but a foolish man devours all he has.

Ohhhh… There I am again. Do you see it? I was the foolish man.

I spent every dime. No savings. I gave my tithe, usually, but the Bible pretty much says I was STUPID because I spent ALL of the rest. I should have been able to live on what God gave me and been able to give too.

This is not where I get to enter some kind of faith excuse. This is not where I get to say that I gave away what I might have otherwise saved. It doesn't work that way. But if I am faithful to take care of the resources that God gives me, guess what?

He has more. I am convinced that He wants to give it to His kids, but if He did that, then most of us would ruin ourselves with it. He tells us repeatedly that He will take care of us - might I add "perfectly?" The question is, "Are the troubles that we suffer of our own making?"

If so, then, "That's not 'good enough!'" It's not good enough that we manage to tithe but not save. Truly, God is faithful and as we show ourselves faithful in little, He will provide as necessary, but don't expect God to bless mismanagement. I have faith - faith that God will turn up the heat just enough to help you recognize the importance of diligence in your finances. There will be both fat and lean times, so prepare for them insofar as He blesses you to do so. He says it over and over and over again… "The prudent man sees danger afar off and prepares for it..."

Are you now struggling to get everything paid? Commit to Him your daily bread, then make a true accounting of your income and your expenses. Take responsibility to be a good steward of what you do have. I trust that as with us, the heart that is committed to Him and His ways will find that He is Enough. This is where enough and contentment live together. This is where financial madness turns to peaceful, resolute, passionate and decisive action.

Dave, the crazy dude on the radio, says all the time, "Personal finances are %80 personal..." That means that if you want a change in your finances, then you will have to change your "personal."

It is enough. Enough debt. Enough heartache. Enough arguing. And though there will be difficulties, there is a God who wants to be your Enough while you take on whatever hurdle is in your path.

Philippians 1:6 is a favorite of mine… "…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Commit your ways to Him (Proverbs 3:5-6) and He will carry you. Verse after verse, passage after passage the Bible is more real to me all the time. As I honor His word in things that I find in it, He is faithful to provide the means. That is how faith works.

I hope that I haven't hurt any feelings because that isn't my goal here. I made some nearly tragic errors. I hope to convey to anyone reading the importance of sticking to the word of God – however they might feel otherwise.

The way to start digging out of a hole is first to "stop digging deeper." If you are the paramedic type, then you know the importance of "stop the bleeding". Commit yourself to balancing the budget and the checking account. Commit mutually to your spouse to cut the credit cards, to spend only with cash. Pay the priorities first – Food, shelter, gas, and on down until the money is gone. Save a small emergency fund today. Pay only minimums until that is up to something acceptable – Dave recommends $1,000. I think that up to $2,000 might sometimes be useful for some people, but we did the $1,000 and somehow came up with the rest whenever those unexpected things came up.

Start now. Start by writing down your expenses in order of priority. If you need to make a change, then you and your spouse make time to decide how to move the money around to fit again. Then, start over again on the next check. Every single time that you get paid, you do it again. Will it be tough? Yes. Will you fall off the budget wagon? Yes. The question that you can only answer is whether your enough is enough to get you to pick yourself back up and get back on...

I went into more detail on how to set this up earlier and I will share more on how we got this to work, but start with this and you will probably find that there is Enough there – maybe even more than you thought. Please feel free to call us or email if you like. I am not a counselor, but we can have a cup of coffee and I can show you how we do things…

In the meantime, remember the lillies of the field... Your Heavenly Father cares for you, and He has a plan for you and your family. If you are struggling, then keep reading and re-reading Matthew 6 - memorize it and live it. One day at a time, one decision at a time commit things to the Lord in prayer.

God Bless!

I <heart> Money?

Those of you who know the old adage and who know me probably have knitted brow regarding the title of this post… No need to fear, however, I have not lost my ever-lovin'-mind. Yet. Arguable at times, but not yet. :-)

I started blogging with a lot of ideas and I guess I backed away from some of them because I feel like my whole life is one big conversation regarding things and stuff, finances and relationships, as they are taught Biblically. I am not totally sure that I want people to think of me as the single-topic preacher type, and I definitely don't want to seem critical or harsh to anyone regarding this sensitive and personal topic. So, I hope that by posting some things here I can point out some Biblical principles, and, Lord-willing, the things I say will not be taken offensively because I am not giving them to anyone in particular. Just stuff that I have learned personally through experience and listening to people who I believe follow and teach Biblically…

The title above is sort of like admitting you are an alcoholic or something. You have been hiding the truth for years from your church, your friends, your pastor, your spouse and yourself? The situation has come to a head, perhaps, and the awful, private truth has now become obvious to the entire world. The repo man came last week and took the car. The Bank laughs when you ask for a mortgage. You can't look the offering plate in the eyes, so you sort of glance askance as you gingerly (and quickly) hand it off.

Maybe you aren't there – yet. Maybe the problems are still lurking in the privacy of your checkbook, but you feel the weight of the debt while the headlines are blaring certain doom, and you are feeling the fear, the oppression of your past choices ominously looming over your head like a thunder cloud before the storm.

Then again, maybe you aren't all that deeply concerned. Things are OK, but I know I should be better with my money. Perhaps you just want to do well as a steward of God's blessings, giving, investing…

Or, maybe you have been cruising along and the handles on your finances got shorter with a pay cut. Whatever the circumstances, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, seeking and following His advice. And that starts with a little honest confession, "Hello, my name is Ryan, and I like stuff…"

There are a lot of opinions regarding financial matters, but there are a few common but false assumptions that I would like to tackle with a few firm principles. I hope to generate some healthy thinking.

The first bad assumption that I see is that money is bad, dangerous or sinful. To some, the oft repeated phrase is misquoted as, "…money is the root of all evil…". With this phrase, we explain corporate greed, corruption of all sorts and burglaries in many forms. But it is wrongly quoted that money is the source and reason for them… The Bible, from where the saying originated instead says:

1 Timothy 6:10 (New International Version)

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

It is from this text that I keep my heart attitude aligned to God and His Word. It is not the money itsefelf, but the love of money that I have to mind. And there is a very good reason that it says this in this way. When we are emotionally attached to anything, then we are then tempted to make rash decisions that feel good at the moment, but ignore God's own word. Money is a great example to demonstrate this kind of root problem, because we all have the emotional attachments to it to one degree or another. It provides perceived security, perceived joy, perceived status, and in it we easily place our trust – even though we ironically print right on it, "In God we trust!"

For some of us the last 30 years has been a financial inebriation. We think that because we have all sorts of things and stuff, we have things figured out; and now, with the markets melting down, jobs in decline, and headlines that rub salt in every wound, we have a national, monster hangover. We the people have been drinking the wine of wealth, securing our futures in the things of this world, haven't we? It was a nice time while it lasted, huh? As with alcohol, there is a subliminal deceit that having enough things and stuff, is satisfying and plain fun. Just as with alcohol some of us are more susceptible than others to be intoxicated and addicted to it, while others are relatively unaffected by it.

How are you? Are you still drunk? Are you hung over? Are you OK? Why? Do you know someone else who is doing things right and winning?

I hope to explore these and some related ideas, and, as we look at these things, I think that we will find that there is a proper, Biblical perspective that will bring true peace, true joy and real satisfaction. Today though, you need to consider where you place your trust – what's the bottom line?

God truly desires to bless His children. He knows that things and stuff can be a problem for His kids too. It can be a problem both ways - not to have it at all and be hungry, or to have it and cause ourselves many griefs.

For His faithfulness to us I live most often in Matthew 6: 19-33. He takes care of the birds and the lillies, knows the number of hairs on my head, so He will take care of me.

All good things come from Him… and He gives perfectly:

James 1:17 (New International Version)

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

But He does not give equally – He gives as liberally as is good for His kids. He has a purpose for each and I hope to dig into that later, but the summary is that He will only give as much as we are capable of being faithful using, according to the measure of our character.

Financial stress is destructive. It is the usually the result of our own bad behavior and we will be looking at that, but today please understand that God has the best plans for us. He has given us a great deal in His Word which will not leave us in stress – if we honor it. He is continually shaping us to His image, teaching, testing and forming our hearts to be like His. He is a giver, indeed The Giver. He does not give from a limited resource, nor does He give with debt either to Himself or us. He gives freely. As destructive as financial stresses are, the real source of stress is sin, whether financial or otherwise.

If you are overwhelmed with life, I want you to understand something very important. God loves you and gave His Son so that you could know peace in your heart, eternal peace that you have never experienced unless you have been forgiven your debt of sin. You see, we owe a debt for sin that can only be paid by death. How serious is this debt? It is not even repayable by you or me because we ourselves have sinned, so our own life cannot serve as payment. God has a plan though. He sent His Son, Jesus, to live a perfect human life, to pay an infinite human debt, from the only infinite source, which is God himself. There is a place to start now, "…my name is __________, and I have sinned…"

He has provided a way to take care of the ultimate debt through His Son's own sacrifice. To get to true freedom, you have to start with the most important things…

1 John 1:9 (New International Version)

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

There is real hope, real help and real solution that we will continue discover, both spiritually and financially… As Dave Ramsey closes out every broadcast, "There's only one way to true financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus."

So, hang on, there may be a little turbulence ahead, so let's figure out the seatbelts, OK?