Would love to hear from you.

David

May I have your permission to use some of your thoughts; i.e.; “God can NOT keep us out of debt.
“I believe God would love to see His children living debt-free lives. But, as stewards of the money that He has entrusted to us we have a free will to do what we wish with it. We can choose to give it, save it, spend it, or even spend more than we have.
“I also believe that God will work on our behalf to help get us out of debt, but we have a big part to play – to stop spending more than we have! It doesn’t matter how much God provides – as long as we are spending more money than we have, we will always be in debt.”

Thank you again for my “start” in developing a class for my church in Bellingham, WA.

Many Blessings,
Steve

Again, I don’t disagree that there isn’t a personal factor in terms of how I deal with my finances and I admitted that in my previous post. But I guess in my reality, there are other factors that put limits on what I can control. Maybe in your situation you’re totally in control (even of the business man who you’d talk to) and I guess that’s the crux of the matter.

I was only pointing out that it is human nature to immediately jump into the blame game/excuse game, rather than looking deeper. I’m guilty of this myself, being human and all.

I do know that as a business man if I was in a tight spot and someone lost paperwork that was essential to me being paid I would go sit in person with the owner of the business and explain to him that this was putting me in a bind and making his business look bad.

This could also be a learning experience of who not to do business with. We had to make the decision not to do business with certain partners unless they paid up front.

I don’t agree that I’m “justifying my mistakes”. Though Dave talks about a billing problem, it can’t be just that. As I explained, I did everything on time and in the right order but later found out that the bureaucracy of the institution and the fact that they claimed that they didn’t get the paperwork, which isn’t true, is what is causing the delay.

Let’s not jump the gun to think that we are in control of EVERYTHING that happens with our money. Though we are in control of what we do with our income, there are factors that affect the actually “coming in” of the income that we’re working for. This is especially true if you are self-employed.

On the business side, my man Dave Ramsey says that when you have a collections problem you actually have a billing problem. Look him up on it.

Be careful not to try to justify your mistakes rather than learning from them.

I’m a consultant, and though I billed on time and did all the paperwork to get my payment on time, I found out that the agency “lost” the paperwork and essentially my contractor had to resubmit my claim for processing. My husband is also a consultant and hasn’t been able to make any claims for some of the jobs he has based on the stage that they’re at.

So, how do you go to the supermarket and pay your bills when you don’t have any money? My in-laws, who are believers (God bless them) gives us loans. Not one or two, but several. Considering that the scripture talks about the fact that God wants us to lend, wouldn’t it imply that there would be persons to lend to? Consequently, couldn’t it be argued that God provides through loans?

At first glance it seems like this is God telling the widow to borrow, but I don’t believe it is in the same motivation as what this article is discussing, primarily financial borrowing and being slave to it. This was a test of faith rather than a license to borrow beyond her means.