God and Debt, Practice and Provision

One thing my wife and I have been trying to do the last eight months is pay down our credit cards and get out of consumer debt. It's one thing to use a credit card to maintain a standard of living that you can't truly afford anymore. It's quite another to be at an absolute minimum and still need things like food and heat after all the money is gone.

We were living on credit a long while before we neared our maximum and could not keep the vultures from circling. We went into foreclosure, nearly losing our house, until friends stepped forward and helped us cure our mortgage under Colorado law.

Since then, we have never been late on a mortgage payment, and hopefully we never will be again, although July looks a bit sketchy because of a downturn in our business. God knows, and he's already there at July with what we will need. I know it. I believe it. He's told us we "will not lose our house for financial reasons." He gave me a "fleece" that came true to the letter, and that's what we hung on to during the foreclosure. If I hadn't received the fleece, I would likely have listened to the folks around me and sold our home to a vulture.

God has stepped in like that from time to time, giving me what I needed to make a crucial decision. It's not my talent or abilities that saved us. It was His word to us and his children around us hearing his voice and obediently giving. Trusting His power and grace to meet us where we were was all we could do. We had no other option.


So where was I? Credit cards. God has allowed us to go into credit card debt. We've prayed and felt His leading was to do what was necessary to provide for us. That may fiddle with people's theology or their fiscal theosophy, but that's where we were. He has always told us in those times that He will deliver us from the debt. But that doesn't mean He will the next time we may run short. It's His provision, so it's His call.

Yet He's also given us enough the last eight months to not just stay out of adding to the debt, but to pay down the debt. But which cards to pay off first? Do we knock off the little ones regardless of the interest rate? Or should we pay down one of the larger ones first? If so, do we pick one with a low rate or a high rate? We don't get any particular direction, spiritually, so we set out to find the smartest way. The answer was a little surprising.

I want to do what brings God the most glory with every aspect of my life, despite--and often through--my frailties. It's not about me, or my finances, or my family's future, really. It's about Him being willing to meet us in our need  and acting to put us in a position that only his Son really deserves. He's powerful and wonderful and glorious in His work. We get what we don't deserve, and His providence is more than enough for what we need. Praise His name!