“Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.” (Ecclesiastes 5:5)
There are many of us that believe that the Bible, except for the issue of tithing, has very little to say about money.
Actually, the Bible has more to say about money than it has to say about faith and prayer combined. Over 2000 verses in the Bible deal with money while only 1000 verses deal with the issues of prayer and faith. More than half of the parables that Jesus used during his three-year ministry directly or indirectly concerned money. In fact, it was Christ who said: “No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
In 1991, just prior to my own salvation, my lifestyle caught up with me. The 1980’s were a time of excess for our country and I was no different. My spending habits had been out of control for quite some time and I was at the end of my rope. I had exhausted every remedy that I knew, including lines of credit that I had on high-interest credit cards. The only way out seemed to be bankruptcy.
It may sound a little strange, but many of today’s banking practices and banking laws are based biblical principles. Even bankruptcy itself carries a seven-year judgment before it is forgiven, which comes from the book of Deuteronomy: “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.” (Deuteronomy 15: 1)
Today, many of us choose bankruptcy over honor. We may not realize that’s the choice we are making. Yet, when we signed that promissory note, we made a vow to pay back that which we had borrowed. So, while the law of bankruptcy may remove man’s obligation of debt, God’s law does not. That’s why our credit record is stained for at least seven years. It’s the world’s way of acknowledging that God’s law prevails over man’s law.
So, how did I get out of the financial pinch in which I found myself? Well, I did not choose bankruptcy. Who in the world would hire a government official and vest him with the authority to handle millions of dollars only to learn that he had filed for bankruptcy? More importantly, even though I was not a Christian at the time, I looked at my financial problems as an opportunity to find out just how much character I had.
I learned to swallow my pride and ask for help. I found that avoiding creditors was not the way to convince them that you had every intention of paying them back. So, I sought help from several banking friends and was able to slowly work myself out of my crisis by learning to live more frugally, consolidating some of my loans, and getting rid of most of my credit cards.
I wouldn’t trade what I learned from that my experience for anything. I was saved several months after I realized I was in trouble and I believe God used that crisis in my life to bring me closer to him. It’s like an old friend once told me: “Sometimes God has to put you on your back to get you to look up.”
I still remember in the heat of that crisis that I got down on my knees in tears one night and promise God as I had so many times before: “God, if you’ll get me out of this jam, I promise you I’ll change.” God delivered and I changed.
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