Author Steven Lake
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| My Ways Are Not Your Ways Friday, August 22nd, 2014 5:49pm Keywords: (None) |
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| I have an interesting little story for you guys and a bit of a life lesson to go with it. But first a little background behind the story. Over the past number of years I've been working very hard to get our heads (mom and I) above water financially, and both of us completely out of debt. However, no matter what we did, no matter how hard we tried, we never seemed to succeed. And believe me, we prayed and prayed and prayed about this, and yet success always seemed to eluded us. That is, until very recently, which is where my story begins. It was during this time that, by what seemed a miracle of God, our bills lightened considerably and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel seemed to appear. As such we believed that we could now very aggressively attack our debts and eliminate them within a short amount of time, and do so with the minimum of risk to ourselves. So we got to work trying to pay off our debts with all due speed. However, that apparently wasn't what God wanted. Let me explain. The bible does not specifically forbid debt. I thought it did, but after some careful research I found that it actually doesn't. What it does forbid is the improper use of debt, which ultimately ties into the many teachings on good money management. Anyhow, even though debt is allowed in the bible, I was tired of being oppressed by it and wanted my freedom. Again, that was not God's plan. How do I know? Well, there's a lot of reasons, more than I can list, so I'll give you the cliff notes version. At the beginning of our campaign I had a well thought out and detailed plan that would have allowed us, within just a handful of months, to completely wipe out our credit cards, the first of our big debt burdens, and remove that from the list of debts we owed. All we had to do was sacrifice a little, live light, and be frugal, and we would get through this with cash to spare and a lot less debt. To do this, I set aside what I believed, through a lot of thinking and number crunching, would be a sufficient nest egg to easily carry us through the next five to six months and cover all our basic expenses that we'd have during that time. We wouldn't be able to buy much, but what we had budgeted for each week would still be enough to do all we needed to. Well, my plans, although brilliant, quickly fell apart right out of the gate. Much to my surprise we not only exceeded what we had budgeted, but we actually blew through the entire cash bundle in less than six weeks. Yes, you read that right. Six months worth of spending cash completely gone in less than six weeks. Well, me being me, I was bound and determined that I would get these debts paid off. So, figuring that brighter days would soon be here, as I had a ton of outstanding cash just sitting out there in the wild ready to come in at a moment's notice, which was money that was owed me from a variety of sources, I plowed ahead by digging into our emergency cash, figuring that would hold us long enough to wait out that pending cash. Bad move. At the end of two months I had made some excellent progress on the two cards, however we were completely out of spending cash, and it wasn't due to bad money management on my part. It just grew wings and flew away at record speed. To make matters worse, a HUGE car repair came up out of nowhere and took nearly every single dime of progress, plus a bit more, and wiped it out. ALL OF IT. Every last dime of progress we'd made on our credit cards, plus a bit more, got zeroed out in one shot. To say I was angry and confused is an understatement. I wasn't about to go out and shake my fist at God and cry, "Why did you do this to me!?" If there's one thing I've learned in my forty two years of life on this planet, it's that 1) you DO NOT under ANY circumstances get mad at God. He can smack you down hard in ways you can't even imagine if you do. So I wasn't foolish enough to incur His wrath because of my own stupidity. And 2), He has a reason for everything He does. We may not understand it, but we have to accept it, because His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. He knows the end from the beginning and all things in the middle. That means that God knows a WHOLE lot more than we do, and will very obviously pick the best path out of all the countless possibilities out there, even if it doesn't seem like the right one for our finite minds. So that's how I approached this. So knowing that it would require a bit more aggressive praying than I normally do, as no answer had come to me throughout all of this, I chose to fast, and for anyone who knows me, fasting is probably one of the hardest ways I know to pray, because I don't do fasts well. In fact, I suck at them. I like food too much, and clearly God knows that, as nearly every time before this He's answered my requests within the first twelve to sixteen hours of beginning my fast. Some people take three days, seven, sometimes twenty one or more to get an answer for something from God. I get it within about twelve hours. But it's a very uncomfortable twelve hours. I'm not bragging when I say this. In fact, I'm kinda ashamed that I can't get any further into my fasts, but if God is willing to answer you the same, be it 2 hours into a fast or 2 weeks, is there really any difference between the two? Some day He may require longer, larger, deeper fasts out of me. But for now He has typically blessed me with answers I seek within that first half day. Probably because, at least to me, fasting is the prayer nuclear option. If all else fails, fast. But if you can get the answer without a fast, go for it. Anyhow, I began my fast the day before shortly after lunch (I couldn't get out of eating, so I politely took the meal, ate it, and then began my fast counter from that point. By that evening, it was at the twelve hour mark, so I began praying. I got zip, zilch, nada, nothing. Not even a peep. So I carried on into the next day, pleading with God for an answer. Why was this happening to me? Why did He force me to undergo a hugely expensive car repair (it started out as an innocuous little problem and ended up as one step short of an overhaul) that wiped out all the progress I'd made on the credit cards? Why did all the money run out so fast? Why wasn't the promised money coming in? Why couldn't we get out of debt? Why, Lord, why!? I know you want me out of this debt! So why won't you help me, or rid me of this? Silence. That's the only answer I got. But I still hung in there. By now I was really getting hungry and the fast was absolutely driving me up a wall. Like I said, I don't fast well. Anytime I had to do fasting in the past, especially for medical exams, it was not unheard of for me to destroy a six pack of hamburgers after completing the required fasting period. Anyhow, frustrated I finally threw my hands in the air, and basically said, "I give up, Lord. Whatever you want. Just tell me why this is happening?" It was at this point I got my answer. Not right away. I had to actually sit down, let go of this desire and just open my heart to whatever God wanted, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. And you know what? The moment I fully surrendered, God answered me. But I first had to let go of everything I wanted, and let God speak to me. And his answer was interesting. Here's the general gist of what He told me. 1) "The debt is for your protection." <- This made absolutely no sense to me, and still doesn't. How can something as oppressive as debt be a form of protection for me? And if it's for my protection, what's it protecting me from? I wasn't told. 2) "It will be lifted when it has served its purpose." <- I still have no idea what that purpose is, as He never told me. But it's apparently something important. I also don't know how long that will be, or how it'll be lifted, either practically (though income or other monetary means) or miraculously by divine forgiveness of the debt. 3) "You have not been given what you have been promised, because it's not time yet, and you will not succeed nor get ahead until the appointed time." <- Out of all the three answers, that one probably made the most sense. It actually explained a LOT of things in my life, and how it seemed like we (a friend of mine and myself) were spinning our wheels with everything, but getting absolutely nowhere. We're not going to succeed at any of the big money making things we're trying to do until it is God's time. Until then they will fail and fail and fail until the above two have been completed, and then we will have all we need. Not want. Need. So until then all I'm allowed to do is make the normal monthly payments on the debt, but I am not to attempt to pay it off. At least not until God says to, and then when He does I'd better be johnny on the spot to pay every dime on that debt that He wants me to. Anyhow, that's the lessons I learned through this rather interesting, and life changing experience. It's also made me better understand that, if God doesn't want you to move forward, you're not getting anywhere, no matter what you throw at it. So I'm very graciously obeying the Lord through this, and in doing so He's blessed me a ton already. The first of those blessings comes in the form of my car. Despite dumping nearly two grand into fixing it the first time, there were still two more problems with it that needed addressing. Want to know the interesting part? They didn't cost me a dime. Yes, I kid you not. What could have been expensive fixes turned out to cost me nothing, and all because I finally broke down, threw my will and ideas on how things should work clean out the window, gave God a blank check, and said, "Whatever you want, Lord, I will do it." It was a hard lesson to learn, but it could have been far more costly if I had remained stubborn. But ultimately I said Yes to God and NO to self, and I've been blessed since then. I still have to rebuild all that I tore down with my rebellion and willful disobedience, but I trust in the Lord that He will restore all that my stupidity has destroyed. So always remember, His ways are WAY, WAY, WAY above yours. So even if it doesn't make sense. Even if it's not something you want to do. Even if it goes against everything you think or believe, if God wills it, and it does not go against the bible, then by all means, obey. The costs of not listening and obeying God's will aren't worth it. Trust me. I know. |
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