Being in debt is slavery, and we know Yehovah does not want His people to be enslaved to anything. He wants His people to be free to serve Him in any way they want, and being in debt does not make you very efficient in your service for Him.
Yehovah has given us two essential keys on how to get out of debt, confession, and repentance is the first key, and the second is a proper understanding of the Bible. When we confess, repent, and make sure we govern our finances and our lives in obedience to the Torah, we are doing everything we are supposed to do to get out of debt.
What if we still find ourselves in debt even after doing everything right? Today we will learn how this is not a quick fix method, and the reason for it is that we serve a God who is love. He wants us to become debt-free, but He wants us to be healed as well, so we will not repeat our sins.
When my wife and I first got married, we had both read books on marriage and how old wounds from the past could affect the marriage. We were both aware of this, and we had no intention of letting our old wounds from our individual histories affect us in any way.
Some years before I met my wife, Yehovah started me on a journey of masculine healing to heal my father wounds. My father was present in my childhood; he never used to beat us and never touched alcohol. He had a steady job and provided for us the best he could. From the outside, he looked like the perfect father, and he was well respected in the local community.
Feeling insecure and not knowing if you are good enough is a part of growing up. We all go through that phase in life where we struggle with low self-esteem and not knowing where to fit in. Boys have a desperate need to hear their father giving them direction and acknowledging them. If this does not happen, you will end up with a considerable father wound that needs to be dealt with, or else can cause chaos later in life.
My father had never told me, or my brother, that he loved us or that he was proud of us. He never told us we had what it takes. Instead, he took pleasure in telling us how de did not measure up and how we were never good enough. This left both my brother and me with a massive father wound that needed healing.
When I first met my wife, Yehovah had made significant progress in my healing as a single male. I felt secure and confident as a man, no longer in need of any other male acknowledgment of my masculinity. I had read all the books on how a father wound could affect me as a husband, and I was prepped and ready to make sure I would be the best husband in the world.
A few months after we got married, chaos erupted on my side of the family. It all ended with me having to cut all contact with my parents and my brother to protect myself and my wife. At the same time, I was desperately in need of male guidance on how to be a good husband. I knew I would probably never had that close relationship with my father, but I had hoped I could have that kind of a relationship with my married brother and asked him for guidance and wisdom on how to be a husband. I so needed male support and male advice on how to be a good husband for my wife. When this happened, and I had to cut contact with my side of the family, I felt very alone and inadequate for the job ahead as a husband.
A few months after all of this happened, my wife got sick while we were away in another country on the other side of the world. It was nothing serious, but I remember how scared I felt being on the other side of the world trying to help my wife in a foreign culture. I had to be strong for her, but inside I was trembling with fear, not knowing what to do or how to handle this situation. I remember how desperately I needed the assurance and guidance of either my father or my older brother on how to handle this situation. With what had happened a few months before, I had to deal with this on my own and make the best of it. The only thing I could think of doing was to go out to the shops and buy every over the counter medicine I could get my hands on, every vitamin that could help her. Things worked out, she got better, and we got home safe, but we had also used a lot of money on our credit cards and already acquired a lot of debt.
What happened was the wound created in me by my father in the past, got ripped open again when my wife got sick, and instead of reacting rationally, it made me spend a lot of money we did not have in an attempt to cure and help my wife.
A father wound usually affects a man when it comes to decision making. Instead of getting it healed, we allow the pain from the past to trick us into making a lot of sinful decisions we will have to pay for later on in life.
A mother wound is just as bad for a man because when you have had a mother as I had, it affects relationships with the opposite sex.
My mother had no problem telling my brother and me she loved us. She often told us how proud we made her feel, but she tended to be very jealous and sometimes outright hateful if we made her angry. If we disagreed with her or did something she did not approve of, she would flat out tell us we were no longer her sons. She would become a huge drama queen, make a lot of emotional upheavals. She would not accept us again as her sons until we had apologized and told her she was right and we were wrong.
Growing up with a father like mine, and a mother like mine, I would soon develop a fear of being abandoned. If my mother, who was the only one who told me she loved me, would disown me, I would be left alone with my father. So I became easily manipulated out of fear of losing my mother’s love, and every time she would get angry, I would become petrified and scared I had gone too far, and now she would refuse to take me back.
Before I met my wife, I had read a lot of books on the father wound, but I had read no books on the mother wound. I was totally and wholly unprepared for how the mother wound would affect me as a husband.
My mother, when she got upset and angry, I knew the next thing that would happen would be disownment. She would force me to change my mind and agree with her, and then she would take me back as her son.
When my wife got upset over something, I reacted out of my mother wound without being aware of it. I can still remember the first time it happened. I got so scared and so petrified, but in my mind, I could not understand why. In my mind, I knew I was happily married to a woman who loves me, respects me, and encourages me. But because of my mother wound, my emotions overrode my mind, and I ended up acting out of what I felt instead of what I knew.
So because of my mother wound, I ended up agreeing to buy and use more money than we could afford to avoid upsetting my wife. All of this had nothing to do with my wife; it had all to do with my mother. So what I was doing was spending money to avoid upsetting my mother even though she was not there.
I can even remember my wife asking me if we could afford all of this; at the time, I was so regressing into my mother wound, so I lied to her and said yes.
So because of my father wound and my mother wound, I ended up making a lot of sinful decisions that, in the end, acquired us a ton of debt.
Why am I sharing all of this? To show you how wounds from our past affect us and trick us into making sinful financial decisions. Perhaps you had great parents, but if you find yourself in debt right now, I can guarantee you it happened because of wounds from your past.
Yehovah does not want anyone to be in debt. And the Bible says in 1. John 1:9 when we confess and repent, He forgives us. When we start living in obedience to the Torah, the Torah will provide for us and show us the way out of debt. So why are we still in debt? Why are you still in debt after doing everything the Bible says you are supposed to do?
Because we serve a God, who loves us, that is the reason why we are still in debt.
All of this happened to my wife and me because of old wounds from our past. What has happened to you is because of old wounds from your past. My wife and I knew, intellectually, we had to be good stewards of our money. We both knew it is not the right decision to spend more money then we have, and if we did, we would have to suffer the consequences of it. You knew it was not the right decision to spend more money then you had, and if you did, you would have to suffer the consequences of it. But even so, we did it anyway because our old wounds took control of us, and we acted out of our emotions instead of our intellect.
We are now doing everything right; we are forgiven and walking in obedience to the Torah. What would happen if Yehovah removed the consequences of our actions right now? What would happen if He intervened right now and removed all of our debts without first healing our wounds? We would go right back and acquire more debt.
Because we serve a God who loves us, we serve a God who cares for us and sees our needs. He knows that it would a very unwise decision of Him to take away our debts without first healing our wounds. But He also knows that to be able to treat our wounds, we first have to walk in obedience to the Torah and be reconciled to Him.
We have now confessed and repented. We have started walking in obedience to the Torah, and while we are walking in obedience, Yehovah is healing us of our old wounds. He is the physician, the one who knows when the wound is healed. He is the one who will one day soon declare us healed and then decide to remove the consequences of our actions and make us debt-free.
Until then, it is our responsibility to keep walking in obedience to the Torah, trusting that He will provide for us even in our debt.
So if you are still in debt, but you are doing all the right things, keep doing them so Yehovah can finish His healing. One day soon, He will declare you healed and determine that now your old wounds will no longer have power over you, so now it is safe to remove your debt.
Next week we will learn to budget while you are still in debt, but planning for and hoping for the future.