Your creditors will not tell you about the grief that accompanies consumer debt. When you don’t have a mindset to eliminate debt and stay out of it in the future, it eventually renders you unable to pay your loans and for things you really need. Loans may not seem bad when you apply for them, but they become especially harmful to you and your family when you don’t do with them the good thing that is intended (finish college and get a high paying job, purchase a home that never declines in value, purchase an investment that always appreciates in value, etc.). They also become especially devastating when you’re thrust into a period of layoff, demotion, and /or failed business endeavors.
You are not to be fearful of what life may bring, but you are to be aware of the above possibilities so you can order your life in a way that aligns with being a good steward so you can properly love God and love people with tithing and offering and do your part to properly care for the needs of your family now and in the future. The latter responsibility certainly does not mean that you have to or should provide them with all the material things you or they want. It means you need to trust in the Lord and thus be wise, in accordance with scriptural instruction, about the proportion of your income that goes to giving, saving and spending and you need to be careful to stay out of debt.
Over the past three decades, men have turned national economies in the direction of operating in a manner that shows that employer loyalty to employees and vice-versa is a thing of the past for many people. A result of this societal attitude change toward caring for one another is massive layoffs by many businesses because it is considered the remedy for every situation where the business is not as profitable as Wall Street analysts want it to be and it is a play that is expected by Wall Street powerbrokers and it is what businesses are lead to believe is necessary for commercial banks to provide them future loans / lines of credit.
Another result of the shifting loyalty is employees moving from employer to employer in two to five year intervals (even when they could stay on a long-term basis) because they believe that this is necessary to achieve the good life (all the material things they’ve ever wanted).
The societal shift and the results are not necessarily bad. They are something that each business and individual has to consider and prepare for because it may be necessary for a particular business to downsize, lay off employees, cut pay in order to help it become profitable again with an ability to provide some jobs allowing individuals to have a reasonable income that can be used to care for themselves and their families.
Just like a portion of any large group of people, some individuals who run businesses might be making moves out of greed, oppression, non-caring attitudes, and/or ignorance. However, the thing that most often causes severe financial distress for individuals is the manner in which the person managed money long before layoffs and pay cuts ever occurred. This is true with few exceptions though many people don’t want to acknowledge it.
We simply don’t give, save, and then spend like we really believe negative situations could occur at some point in our lives. We do not plan for rainy days. Instead, we continually identify every desire we have as a need and borrow more and more money to make fulfilling these desires a regular part of our lifestyle.
Also, instead of using godly stewardship principles to manage the pay we receive, we spend our time focusing on what we believe our employer should be doing or what it is not doing. In this regard, we fail to recognize that we should not spend energy trying to force our employer to operate the way we think it should. We should instead make a conscious choice to change our habits to attain a better financial position.
Your financial house cleaning process starts with trusting God to provide all your need according to His riches in glory and then immediately moves to writing and following a budget ( a giving, saving, and spending plan) based on the biblically-based vision of debt freedom. This Holy Spirit lead endeavor will release you from the bondage brought on by the loans you irresponsibly accepted from your lenders.
Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Deuteronomy 28:12, Psalms 37:21, Proverbs 22:7, 27:23-24, Romans 13:8
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com.
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