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...Hear the Word |
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Overload Four: “So Broke I Can't Even Pay Attention" You've probably all seen the television commercial of the insanely smiling man riding around on his lawn mower who says, "I have a great house in a great neighborhood, with a swimming pool. I have a wonderful wife and three kids. Like my car? It's new. I'm even a member of the local golf club. How do I do it? I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. Somebody help me!" He's experiencing overload. Overload of debt and possessions. That's what we're going to talk about today on this last Sunday in our series on Overload. Let me begin with going back to what our Lord and Savior has to offer us this morning. Jesus is preaching his great “Sermon on the Mount.” And he offers this sage advice.
Ah—Jesus teaches his followers that God is the provider of all that we need. “Don’t worry,” he says. God provides for all of God’s creatures. Everything you need. Well, that’s fine and good, but who will provide all that we WANT? I've been on a kick for the past few years, when my daughters say “I need a (fill in the blank,) I ask, do you need it or just want it? “Oh Dad, I neeeeeeed it,” they will assure me. Of course, what they need is basic food, shelter, clothing and occasionally, transportation. But what they want….well, we don’t have time to list all that they want. The same is true for most of us. Americans want more than ever. We want, so that we can live a particular lifestyle. The trouble is, the lifestyle is killing us. Many of us have, as the old country western song puts it, “champagne taste on a beer pocketbook.” And so, we are left to charge it, financing what we want, for which we do not have the means to pay. College president Paul Billheimer notes that “the modern American is a person who drives a bank-financed car over a bond-financed highway on credit card gas to open a charge account at a furniture store so that he can fill his mortgaged and re-financed home with installment-purchased furniture.” Sound familiar? Though 82% of Americans believe that “most of us buy and consume far more than we need,” hardly any of us have done anything at all to modify our earn, charge and spend lifestyles. The results are frightening. Credit card debt continues to climb at alarming rates doubling every five years! The average cardholder’s outstanding balance is now $4,400 and climbing. Bankruptcies continue unabated, and have been increasing rapidly for more than a decade. At more than 20,000 a week in this country, the rate of bankruptcy through the 90’s and the first part of this decade exceeds that of the Great Depression. (Overload Syndrome, pg. 99) We are a nation whose savings accounts (those who even have one) are growing smaller and smaller as a portion of our earned income. People can now take our re-finance mortgages that enable them to borrow more than 100% of their home’s value. Pawn shops are springing up and are considered a “growth service business.” Why are we taking on so much debt? Often, to fulfill our desires for more. To live beyond our means. The ironic thing is, as Financial Advisor Russ Crosson correctly points out, “debt sentences us to a lower lifestyle in the future.” As baby boomers retire, they are noticing that they do not have the nest eggs set up that their parents once did. They are retiring in debt. And there is no gloomier picture than realizing that as you are prepared for a few years of play and relaxation, you are instead forced to work in order to pay on the debt you still owe. Well, if culture has one hand on your wallet and another around your throat, these prescriptions from Dr. Swenson will help loosen the grip: Rx 1 Examine your spending motives. Does buying make you happy? Do you: · Spend when depressed? · Spend when bored? · Spend to buy into the hearts of others? · Spend because we define ourselves by our possessions? · Spend because we worry about what others think?
If a person owns 40 pairs of shoes, then something needs to be understood before it can be corrected.
Rx 2 Spend on a need-basis. How many purchases are need-based? How many are desire based, pleasure based, cash-flow based. My daughters spend based on cash flow. If they have cash, it flows! If you get a bonus, a raise or a tax refund, do you immediately think what you could spend it on? Could these windfalls help reduce debt? Pray before buying--think about it for a day, or a week. If it is a need, that need will be clarified. If it is desire, another desire will probably arise to take its place.
Rx 3 Learn to find contentment in simplicity and lower expectations Russ Crosson says, “income is not the reason for financial pressures; lifestyle is.” Control your lifestyle. Scripture warns, “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds.” Go against the “super size” culture, and dare to downsize. Stop venerating automobiles and using them for status. Fix appliances rather than buy new ones. Let things die in your arms. It's amazing how many things “on their last legs” are really just not very pretty, and have years and years of service left. We bought an old Coop freezer from my wife's great-aunt's sale in 1984, that was 15 years old then. We used it up until last year, when I finally broke down and bought another freezer--a 5 year old freezer from a parishioner who needed the money. I then gave away the old old freezer to another couple who needed one, and it's still running today! A simpler home. In the past fifty years, the American family has size has been cut in half, while the square footage of our homes has doubled. In an article in the Wichita Eagle last Sunday, titled “Cutting Spending is tricky,” (See how God provides at just the right time even to a preacher who needs sermon illustrations?) In the article, Bryan Clintsman, a certified financial planner is quoted as saying “Many times, the biggest line item in an overextended budget that needs downsizing is the house. It's painful, expensive and consuming to downsize your house, but it can put you on a firm financial footing, keeps you out of bankruptcy, and reduces stress.” Clintsman says that “downsizing (a house) is viewed by others around you as a step backward. Many people feel that if they downsize, they may never make it back to that wealth level again.” But I caution us all to remember, home size is rarely a level of wealth, it's more often, a level of debt. Don't be a slave to fashion! Fashion completely overwhelms function. Are we sure this is okay with God?
Rx 4 People are more important than things. In the context of possessions, Dr. Swenson states, “there are 3 important rules about values. (1) People are more important that things. (2) People are more important that things. And (3) People are more important that things.” Tolstoy's War and Peace—a book everyone knows about but few take time to read its many pages. In one memorable scene, the year is 1812, and Napoleon is advancing on Moscow. In just a few days, the city will be overtaken, and the people are preparing to flee. Preparing to escape is a Count who is so wealthy he has more than 30 carts loaded with belonging and riches from his mansion. As the Count and his family prepare to flee, his daughter takes notice of all the wounded soldiers lining the streets. As the rest of the city’s citizens begin a trek from town, they are leaving behind the wounded who will become easy targets for Napoleon and his army when they march into Moscow. She looks at the carts of her father loaded with things to be rescued, and then again at the wounded soldiers left on the ground left to die. With tears, she pleads with her father to put the soldiers onto their carts. The father is shamed, and quickly orders his servants to set off the family’s many possessions and place the wounded on. Tolstoy then tells the reader, “the servants, who one moment before were doing the “only thing there was left to do, were now doing the only thing that could be done,” namely taking the possessions off and loading the people on. Ultimately we have to ask ourselves, the question Dr. Swenson asks. What matters most to us? “What is in our carts? Possessions? Things that consume both our time and money? Things that are temporal, perishable, here today and gone tomorrow?”
Rx 5 Keeping down with the Jones'. Look down the ladder. When the Jones' are better off than we are, we feel inadequate. But the truth is there are more Jones' with far less than we have, than there are who have more. Remember more than a billion people around the world live on less than a dollar a day.
Rx 6 Tithe. What? I thought this was a sermon on how to get margin back into my pocketbook, not flow more cash out! It is. But one of the greatest things a person can do to help re-prioritize one's life, is to tithe. Tithing reminds a person regularly, that God is the provider. Just as Jesus reminded those in his sermon. God is the source of all that comes to us. And as we tithe, we begin to think about the other 90% that's still in our control. When we begin to turn over to God a significant portion of all that God has turned over to us, we cannot help but reflect upon God's desires verses our own desires. We cannot help but be transformed as we make wise decisions with what God has given us. It is the basic foundation of Stewardship. Dare to employ a practice that will remind you each week, each month, each payday that God is the source and provider of all that we have. You can think that...you can say it with your lips, or you can put it into practice. Tithe. And you'll never see money the same way again. There, some prescriptions for finding financial margin and health in a culture that loads us with possessions, debt and desire. I challenge each of us to find one or two that might make a difference in our own lives. This has been a great learning experience for me, and I hope it has been for you. Again, I want to remind you that much of what I’ve presented has come from Dr. Richard Swenson--who wrote two very powerful, life-changing books. One is called the Overload Syndrome. The other is called Margin. If you are interested, I'll help you find these books to read. My copies are well marked and highlighted, but I'd gladly loan them out. They are inexpensive if bought in paperback. It is my belief that God wants each of us to live lives full of joy, contentment, and wholeness. We long for these gifts, and look for them often in the very things that rob joy, contentment and wholeness from this. God knows this, and desires a better life for us. May we each discover the margin that will allow us space and room to connect in a deeper, more profound way with the Creator who made us, who loves us, who wants what is best for us. Thanks be to God. Thanks for dropping by: Guest # |
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