I thought I was doing good. That this was the part of life I handled somewhat Ok. But it very quickly has become the chapter of life that I didn’t know I needed to write.
Like I said, I thought I was doing pretty well. I had seen members of my family suffer at the hands of debt’s death grip so I didn’t want to travel that road. If I had a credit card purchase, I paid it off. By the extraordinary grace of God and from some incredibly righteous gifts, I was able to get through undergraduate and graduate school with no loans. I couldn’t exactly say I was ahead, but I would tell you I wasn’t in debt. Or so I thought. And then it came. Those words that have set in motion a rapidly unfolding journey:
“Debt is always spiritual.”
It was the word of the Lord. It’s not about what you have on paper somewhere; Debt is a spiritual transaction between two entities.
“The borrower is slave to the lender.” (Prov 22:7)
My mistake came because I had somewhat of a cleared debt on paper. The bank was happy. The student loan people were happy. The credit card people were….well… not happy. They don’t like it when folks borrow from them and pay back right away.
But if debt is spiritual, then it means whenever I’ve told someone, “Hey, I’ll pay you back for that” and I’ve forgotten, I’m still in debt. I still owe. And I’m still a slave to the lender. Whether they remember or not.
So I’m repenting. And repenting some more. Because God is helping me remember.
Truth is sometimes painful, but it is also liberty.
