Reading the blogs of other people fighting debt helps me keep my resolve in focused debt reduction. As I browse articles that relate to where we’re at in our journey out of debt, I often sift out those to do with investments and savings. There is an overlap between writings on the subject of debt reduction and those on the subject of wealth building, and while I’m 100% in when it comes to eliminating debt, I struggle with the concept of building wealth. Where I associate debt reduction with becoming responsible, exercising discipline, and cleaning up my act, I have tended to associate wealth building exclusively with greed and selfishness.

A few years ago, I wrote a post explaining how faulty interpretations of certain Bible passages had taken root in me long ago, leading me to associate money and rich people with all that is bad. 1

It can be touchy to quote the Bible when sharing a personal issue—like personal debt—because it can alienate the listener or the reader. But debt reduction is many-layered, and leaving out the spiritual side of it gives an incomplete picture of the experience. A colleague of mine who reads my blog and who is not Christian told me last year, after reading the post mentioned above, “You’re one of the few people who can quote the Bible without leaving me angry.” That gives me encouragement to delve into the subject again.

Physical and Financial Fitness

I remember once listening to a Christian radio show as I drove my car. The guest was a man well into his sixties who was talking about physical fitness and the need, with age, to include progressively higher ratios of weight-bearing exercise in daily workouts, as opposed to cardio exercise, in order to remain strong and healthy. People were able to phone in, and one man who did so said, “As Christians, we are called upon to serve others, so how can we be so selfish as to justify spending a half-hour or an hour a day training for fitness?” The question irritated me. Of course you have to look after yourself if you’re going to be of any use to anyone else!I thought. And how does becoming out of shape and risking illness and lack of mobility serve others?

I get that concept with physical fitness, so what stands in the way of my adopting the same attitude with financial fitness? With debt-freedom and savings, I would have more flexibility to give generously to my church, local charities, and even international efforts. These are good things. And they can more readily be done by people who have built up some wealth. Of course, you have to look after your money if you’re going to be of any financial support to others! How generous can you be when you’re debt-ridden?

Remembrance Day and Freedom

In the run-up to Remembrance Day, 2 “They died for our freedom” is the message we often hear, and for me it’s particularly moving because both my father and grandfather served in war. It’s also an especially powerful message for a Christian: we read in the Gospels that Christ served and died “to set the oppressed free.” 3

I looked up the word “freedom” in three different dictionaries (I realise that’s a pretty nerdy thing to do), and in each, there are two parts to the definition:

  1. having power to determine action
  2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved

Freedom is a gift that many of us squander. It’s a gift that we undermine by making decisions that render us captive to things like addictions, materialism, pride, fear … and debt. So how do we honour this gift and the sacrifices made for it? “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” 4 We honour the gift of freedom by living it fully and in gratitude—and by “standing firm” in vigilance to maintain it. Carelessness means slipping back into captivity.

Financial Future

I know that the freedom inherent in financial fitness has the potential to be good. Time will tell if we maintain the discipline necessary to keep things going in a positive direction once we’re out of the red. Time will tell if we use our growing financial freedom well and generously or if we squander it foolishly.

My hope is that we will embrace it and that we’ll “stand firm” to maintain it—because I don’t like captivity. It is for freedom that we are set free. I want to live it.

  1. See the post here: “Debt Reduction and Guilt: Facing the Sabotage from Within”↑
  2. Remembrance Day  is observed on 11 November in most countries to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918.↑
  3. Luke 4:18 NIV↑
  4. Galatians 5:1 NIV↑