i should probably not even post this. but this is what's on my mind.
my friend marla, who is an author, just returned from a mission trip to cambodia and posted this. and it got me to thinking.
lately i've been very convicted about how i manage our money. i made a mistake with our checkbook a couple weeks ago. we were cutting it too close and did not have any margin. all in all, i overdrew our account by about $40 with 6 small transactions (a trip to starbucks included...hhhhhh) and the bank ended up charging us $225 in overdraft fees over the course of those 2 days. i honestly didn't think they were in the right for doing that. i was furious! then i stepped back and took the blame. i screwed up. and that 1 little starbucks drink turned out to cost us over $40 itself. ugh. stupid, stupid, stupid tax!
and then we've been putting off this issue with our well being inadequate and muddy for nearly a year now. and we go and rent the birth tub and try to fill it up friday night and it looks like a swamp. like we really want to birth our child into that. so we let all the dirt in the water settle to the bottom and i go against dave's better judgement and call a hot tub supply company and buy a vacuum and a net sight unseen to try to get the dirt out of the tub. that cost $49 and neither one of those tools even worked! so there goes $49! what a waste of $. so now we are paying a pool water company $130 to deliver 315 gallons of water to fill our birth tub. if we had fixed the well a year ago then we'd not be having this problem. not to mention we are just finishing remodeling our beautiful master bath but it won't stay that way long if we dump our swamp water into the bathtub!
the other thing is debt. mortgages in particular. ours and everyone else's. dave & i really, really want to hurry up and get out of our house and out of debt and never go back in again. our reason being that banks are rich anyways. and why should they get thousands of dollars a year in interest when we should be better stewards of the money God has given us...? let's take our mortgage for example. in the past 7 years, the bank has collected about $67,000 of interest from us alone. if we had actually waited to buy our house till we had saved up the cash, we would have paid $111,500 up front for the actual property and house and the bank would have gotten $0 in interest. instead, we will pay the bank over the course of the loan (or the original loan that we signed up for) about $229,000 of interest. just think about what God could do with $229,000!!!!!!!!!! people will argue and say that real estate debt is good debt and just not that bad. not like credit cards or car loans or something. but i just can not in any way agree with them. this is just our personal home mortgage. think of all the mortgages that all of God's people have. and all of the mortgages that all of God's church's have. think of all the money that is paid out in interest. just wasted. every single month. it makes me sick!
Proverbs 22:7 says "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."
Until we ALL get out of debt, we are in bondage. And the blessings that God wants to pour out on others thru us are blocked because we are wasting His money on interest payments.
Anyways, I have to just calm down and not care that much or I will go insane. Marla is right that God owns everything and He can take care of everyone and he doesn't necessarily need my $49 that I spent on the hot tub vacuum or net or my $225 of bank fees...He can still make everything work out. But I still can't help but feel like a moron for wasting His money.
3 comments:
Christ's blood is enough to wash away all our sin and guilt INCLUDING guilt over how we've misspent our money. Believe me, I've wallowed and wailed SO MUCH about this. I'm slowly learning that it has all been forgiven. I can start anew RIGHT THIS MINUTE. And like some wise soul pointed out on my blog, it's not about me. God must've seen that $65 as a worthy investment toward my spiritual growth.
I appreciate you, Katie. And I'm inspired by your strong, strong desire to get completely out of debt. I want that for us too!!
Mortgages are a BIG-TIME money waster! I am blessed with a husband who didn't just look around and see everyone else buying homes with hardly any money for a down payment and signing up for 30 year loans and think, "Well, everyone does it so it must be okay."
I want to stop doing what's always been done and read my Bible and pray and seek God's will for my life instead of what the world teaches.
God has been teaching me so much about reading His Word and taking Him for His Word and not skipping past the parts that don't go along with "traditions" and how it's always been done. Have you read Francis Chan's "Crazy Love"? It is all about questioning the Christian norm and actually obeying Jesus' messages in the gospels and everywhere else in Scripture. My goal in life shouldn't be to have a huge house, live for vacations, retire when we're 60 and move to Florida and live for ourselves the rest of our lives. We should be GIVING and looking after the needs of those around us and SACRIFICING and taking care of orphans and widows and getting out of our me-centered boxes! God is doing His Work and all we're concerned with is that we go to church, tithe, read our Bibles and go on one missions trip in our lifetime. God wants so much more than that!
This has happened with me and the bank fees, more than once. The great thing is that if you go inside and talk to your bank manager personally, they will lower or waive the fees "just this once". Also, banks have purposely given us this "overdraft protection" as a way to generate fees for no reason. This is why balances float from day to day so that the bank can catch you and "save" you the embarrassment of a decline.
There was a class action suit filed against banks that went effective August 2010. Now it is illegal for them to "protect" you without permission. So now the banks have started marketing it to get their customers to sign up for it. If your fees are recent, you must have signed up for it again. My recommendation is to notify your bank that you don't want their "overdraft protection". This way, if you don't have money than your card is automatically declined. Might be embarrassing and uncomfortable, but I would bet that you'd be a whole lot more aware of how much money you actually have to spend.
As for the mortgage... it's not too late. You might think it is, but you can walk away anytime and start over. Start going to God about this with a fresh mind and no sense of obligation. It's amazing the direction we get from the Spirit when we say that we'll do anything to just be slaves to God alone, not bankers or other people or societal pressure.
Sorry about the book writing today. I just hate seeing the debt falling on all of us believers who are trying to do the right thing but keep failing. The bible does teach on the slavery to sin, but there also is a lot of teaching on how wrong it is to oppress others financially. God's word is harsh on those who lord financially over others, when they are supposed to be merciful.
Post a Comment