Digging Graves

Stop digging your own grave.

Will Rogers said, “If you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.”

Debt is a hole...it is a bottomless pit. A person can keep digging until they go beyond the point where the only way out is to die, then they pass the debt to their family. Their family becomes second generation debt slaves. My father did that. When he died, he passed on debt to my mother, a woman with little formal education, and whose only REAL job had been raising five kids. A child at the time, I did not realize for many years how tough things really were. My mother was a second generation debt slave. She FOUGHT her way out, and now, she and my step-father live in a beautiful home, with nice cars, on the beach...debt free.

I did not learn the lessons about debt from them, even though they tried to teach me. A rebellious and arrogantly obstinate youth, I like many, thought I knew better than my parents did. It has been said, “The older I get, the wiser my parents are.” That is certainly true in my case.

So, how do we ‘stop digging’? The first thing one has to do is stop spending money they do not have. No, duh! It sounds simple. It is not simple. It requires change. We have already noted that change is hard. Let us look at the basics. Any psychologist, behaviorist, and most people will tell us that attitudes drive behavior. One cannot sustain long-term changes in behavior, until one changes the attitudes behind the behavior.

How does one change the attitudes behind debt spending?
We start back with the Bible. Specifically, return to Romans 12:1, 2 as ‘The Message’ Bible puts it, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

I like that, “You’ll be changed from the inside out.” - That is: God will work a change in attitudes that will be reflected in actions.

Begin the change by recognizing, confessing, and repenting. Ask God to help change the attitude by reminding one that debt spending is wrong. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” God promises to give us wisdom, so request wisdom in spending! God has our best interests at heart, Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Philippians 1:6, “...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” - This goes back to the ‘Good’ of Romans 8:28. The ‘good work’ in us is to make us more Christ-like. Borrowing from the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ movement, ASK the Question, “What would Jesus DO with a credit card?”

Change requires a decision. A person HAS to make a choice. “Either do, or do not, there is NO try!” is the quote from Yoda, in ‘Star Wars [The Empire Strikes Back]’. The Bible is a little more direct. Revelation 3:15, 16 says, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” Additionally James 5:16 says, “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.” Yoda paraphrases it very appropriately.

Not making a choice is making a choice not to change.

It is not easy. It is one of the hardest things I have done. It is still difficult. Every day there is a temptation to go back into debt.

Some bad news:
I will almost guarantee when you decide you want to become debt free, you will get blind-sided. Once you have made the decision, the first thing that will happen will be temptation. IT may be a bad thing, it may be a good thing, it may be a little thing, it may be a big thing...but you will be tempted. God wants to know you are serious, and prove He has the strength to help you. Satan wants to divert you, and help you fail!

Keep 1 Corinthians 10:13 in mind, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” This promise is from God!