Category: Finance

Who are you?

NRHS Class of 1968Leave a comment

I was listening to my pastor in church this past Sunday, and I was struck by something he said about human beings.  It seems like many of us are human “doings.”  We seem to want to define ourselves by our jobs, our careers, the things we do to fill up our daily lives.  He asked, though, do we do what we do because that’s our life’s desire or simply to get a paycheck to survive from day-to-day?

When I was much younger, I was simply looking for a way to have some spending money, or to pay for my driver’s license and , eventually, to pay for my college tuition.  Those jobs (jack-hammering out a new cellar hole, kitchen worker at our local hospital, mail room at the factory where my dad worked, painting houses with my future bother-in-law, working night shifts at the nearby paper mill, cooking at a local restaurant–the last three all at the same time!) were, for the most part simply to make money–although cooking has become one of my favorite hobbies.  I didn’t want to make any of these jobs my life’s work.  At this point in my life, I was a human “doing.”  Unfortunately, many of us get caught in getting a steady paycheck and find ourselves getting locked in to something we really don’t want to spend the rest of our lives doing.  Ask a mix of some of the people you know and find out how many are working to simply get money to survive and how many love what they are doing.

I was going to become a lawyer.  I loved words and I loved arguing.  Perfect match, huh?  Two years into college, I discovered that I didn’t really want to become a lawyer.  I wanted to teach kids.  So, I earned my teaching certification and as soon as we got married, my wife and I began to teach little kids at our church.  Then I began to teach a Sunday School class.  Then I started coaching.  Then came substitute teaching and full-time teaching.  Then more coaching jobs.  And then, finally becoming a youth pastor.  I was never happier than when I was teaching, coaching and pastoring–all at the same time.  Sure, I got paychecks.  And, while these various types of teaching were my jobs, I wasn’t limited or “stuck” with them because they were what I wanted to  do.  It was who I was–and still am though in many different ways.

God made us human beings to accomplish the things he gave the talents and abilities to do.  How sad it would be to simply do what gives a paycheck and never to enjoy the opportunity to become what He designed to be.

Financial Slavery

NRHS Class of 1968Leave a comment

“…Anyone who borrows is a slave to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)

Financial Slavery

I’ve always been rather fanatical about keeping track of our family finances.  We have a detailed monthly budget that we usually stick to.  We update and balance our checkbook regularly—often each day.  We use credit cards, but always pay them off the same day as the purchase.  Yet, twice I’ve had a problem with one store credit card.  Both times I forgot to follow my “pay it off immediately” rule and, for some reason, I never received their emailed monthly statement.  Getting late notices (somehow those managed to reach me) and knowing how our credit score will be affected is driving me crazy.  This store has me at their mercy.

This reminded me of a story I read about a handyman who had been called out to a millionaire’s mansion to refinish the floors.  The rich man’s wife said, “Be especially careful with this dining room table.  It goes back to Louis XVI.  The handyman replied, “That’s nothing.  If I don’t make a payment by next Friday, my whole living room set goes back to the furniture store.”

It’s been said that the average person today drives a bank-finances car, over a bond-financed road, on gasoline they bought with a credit card, to a department store to open another charge account, so they can fill their house that’s mortgaged for thirty years to the bank, with furniture purchased on an installment plan.

People seem to be divided into three categories: the “haves”; the “have-nots”; and the “have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves.”  It’s not wrong to borrow money.  It’s just wrong to put yourself in a position where you cannot repay it.  According to Psalm 37:21, “The wicked borrow and do not repay.” And for New Englanders (and everyone else), that would be “wicked” bad.