Thursday 22 February 2018

God is the Main Character

We haven't had this for awhile, but this past weekend, our house got turned into a factory again.  RM has a contract that requires that he builds "gaskets".  It is all quite simple work, but we don't mind.  It is an extra income that we can do on evenings and weekends, or so we thought.  He'll also take next week off in order to get it done.  This project is a great way to get the kids involved, too.  Some of the tasks are simple enough that even the littlest ones can do something.   It becomes school when there is a deadline.

This idea of doing extra work on the side is not revolutionary to us, but it might be to some.  I've been reading a book called The Debt-Free Lifestyle.  Basically, the author argues, the main ways to get out of debt are by living on a budget, below your means and/or making more money!  We've chosen both.  These books are written sometimes by people who have one or two kids or even no kids (which is the case in this book).  Or they are written by people who have regular 9-5 jobs (also in the case of this author).  We just don't fit most categories, but I forget that and I can end up being discouraged by the end of chapter 1, i.e., we have not just one child, but 8.  We only just recently got a "regular" job and were without work for quite a while.  A lot of books like this one are discouraging because they don't account for how a large family (why would they?).  I know this, but have to remind myself as I read it otherwise I feel like a failure.  Dave Ramsey has even hinted that big families are expensive so don't have one.  It is true, though.  I used to tell people, in the name of not limiting God, or the size of their family, "Don't worry!  Kids aren't expensive!"  I think that was when we just had four.....I don't say that anymore!  Kids are expensive!  I still believe in large families, however, as the faith element that comes with trusting God when He says, "Children are a blessing" is by far worth the whole experience.  This author goes on to say (without children), they were able to put a massive amount toward their mortgage through hard work and good planning. 

As for living on a budget or below our means, we've gone through all categories and don't feel we can cut much more, which means, we must somehow seek out more opportunities to make money.  Fortunately my husband doesn't mind the extra work, though it is hard on him, and that is how we will someday be debt-free, Lord willing.  This is why he has the extra teaching job, and does hay in the summer, and the extra work with his engineering company when he can, and even trust God for other things that can drop in our lap. 

This author also suggested using an app to track your spending directly from the bank.  I suggested this to my husband and he said, "Uh, no way...." He didn't want to let some app have access to our bank and then transfer all the money out!  They are supposedly safe, but he wouldn't risk it.  The book said that the bank might offer that service itself, so he checked into it and sure enough, it does!  This service he believed was safe.  It's the bank after all.  So we asked it to diagnose and analyze all our spending and it quickly made all the categories including groceries, restaurants, etc., and voila!  It was amazing!  It doesn't catch everything and doesn't know where to categorize some things, but for the most part it was great and made little charts and everything.  This shouldn't get me off the hook, but it is good to know that it could be my back up.

At the same time, I'm reading another book that I picked up at the library about a couple who started their own vineyard/winery.  I grabbed it because it told a couple's story of how they took a dilapidated farm and old vineyard and turned it into an award winning winery.  Their story was uncannily similar to our's in that they took on a project, house and farm in really rough shape and turned it around pretty much on their own.  It was very encouraging on the one hand to read about how hard they worked, how overwhelmed they were most of the time, and yet, how they succeeded, despite all the naysayers.  It took them over 16 years to get the house and vineyard to a place where they were feeling like they were making money and the house was decent and livable.  I needed to hear that as we're at year 8 of owning the place ourselves and haven't even planted the vineyard yet.  The other interesting aspect is they live down the street from us!  It's a local winery!  So cool!  We hope to meet them someday.

What I didn't agree with entirely and what made me sad was how they went about it all - completely without God and into debt up to their eyeballs.....They had 3 mortgages by the end of the book.  They may be making money now, but it has to be a constant stress to carry all that debt.  I can't even imagine.  We are very much trying to do a similar thing, but, by some miracle, try to do it without carrying 3 mortgages by then end!  Where they pat themselves on the back and cross their fingers for good luck, we are trying to give all the glory to God if and when we succeed in our dreams and actually trust Him for our dreams instead of the whims that come from reading a magazine about renovating an old farm.  They are definitely "self-made".  Yet, I read her story and recognized miracles that happened to them along the way.  At one point they were so poor and had no hope of groceries in the fridge that month. They went to some fund-raiser where they were given tickets to go and they ended up winning a basket full of groceries and all sorts of things they needed for the house. How did they not see that was God's goodness to them?  She thought it was all luck of course.

This was also the case in the first book about debt.  She and her husband were awesome!  And they said so!  We did this and we were able to do that.  Never does she ever credit her knowledge or ability to God who made her financially wise.  Never does she credit her or her husband's work ethic as coming from a higher power.  Nope, all self-made.  It seems so obvious to me when I read these secular sources now that a huge aspect of their stories are missing.  I've read so many Christian books on debt and how they were convicted of certain things or how God worked miracles in their lives, I just kind of got used to it and thought everyone believed God works in their lives.  It just isn't that way.  The worldly writers give themselves credit over and over and refuse to see that God is at work in their stories.  I felt like shouting it out loud as I read it.  I wanted to rewrite their stories from a spiritual perspective.  Very empty.  Why be debt-free?  For what?  So you can travel?  That's nice, but it seems empty?  My kids actually ask me all the time, "Why do we want to be debt-free so badly?" I give very different answers than these books.

All that to say, I think despite their empty teaching, they had some good things to say and God still used these books to encourage me to stay the path, see that with a lot of hard work debt freedom can be achieved, farms and houses can be restored (with time...I want it all done now...), dreams can be realized all without debt.....but, if and when I write our story, I will surely try to communicate it was not luck that saw us through or how amazing our family is.  No, I want to make sure the main character is God and that His goodness to us is what is communicated.  We are simply part of His story, not the other way around.

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