Relationships

canadians and household debt

/ Craig / Leave a comment

On weekend Henry Enchen called debt, not the deficit, the proverbial elephant in the room.  But the challenge is not just there on Parliament Hill; its in your home and mine.  Residing in our homes is a credit bill hidden on the table by a habit of denial created by the discrepancy between earnings in the wallet and expectations in the heart.  Carla Wilson reports that the average Canadian household debt is now over $90,000.

Average household debt rose to more than $90,000 in 2008, Clarence Lochhead told a recent meeting of Victoria’s Association of Family Serving Agencies. The Vanier Institute is a non-profit agency promoting the well-being of Canadian families.

The total debt-to-disposable income ratio rose to 140% last year, Mr. Lochhead said, referring to the Institute’s report, The Current State of Canadian Family Finances. 

I find the few suggestions in the article from Mr. Lochhead of the Vanier Institute on how to help middle and lower income families during a recession something that I am have not heard anywhere else in regard to the “stimulus packages” proposed.

God’s high view of marriage and sexual purity

/ Craig / Leave a comment

What follows is a reprint of an article I put together on God’s high view of marriage and sexual purity.  I am reprinting it to make it available to some friends who have had questions in this area.  It is long because it accesses quite a few passages from the Bible.  While you may not agree with all this give it some consideration and explore the wisdom in it.

 God’s vision for marriage established with Creation.

 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.”  …Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh.  The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Genesis 2:18, 22-25

 

God, through his gift of the Law, established boundaries for sexual intercourse to be within marriage between a man and woman.

 If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife.  If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.

Exodus 22:16-17

 See various laws related to sex and marriage in Leviticus 19 and 20.

 

Jesus affirmed a high view of marriage.

“Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Matthew 19:4-6

 

Jesus’ first public miracle took place in the context of the social practice of making marriage a public event.

A wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.  Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”  John 2:1-3

 

Jesus took issue with lust in the heart as the source of adultery.

You have heard it said, “Do not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:27-28

 

The teaching of the Apostles affirmed a high view of marriage within a variety of cultures and their social practices of it.

If anyone  thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he want.  He is not sinning.  They should get married.

1 Corinthians 7:36

 

We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening.  For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and that you may not find me as you want me to be.  I fear that there may be quarreling, jealously, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.  I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.
2 Corinthians 12:19-21

 

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:  sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
Galatians 5:19-21

 

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  But among you there must be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.  Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.  For of this you can be sure:  No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.  Therefore do not be partners with them.  For once you were darkness, but you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of the light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them…Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise…
Ephesians 5:1-11,15-16

 

“For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:31-33

 

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as our does for you.  May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.  Finally, brothers we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living.  Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.  For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.  It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that each of you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know god; and that in this matter now one would wrong his brother or take advantage of him.  The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.  For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.  Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who give you his Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:8

 

When the Church in Ephesus had experienced a catastrophic leadership crisis, Paul instructed Timothy to limit leadership within the church to those who were displaying God’s ideals in marriage.

If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?

1 Timothy 3:5

 

The writer of Hebrews exhorts all people to honour marriage and pursue sexual purity.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Hebrews 13:4

interested in the tricks of credit?

/ Craig / Leave a comment

In case you were not wondering and worried about your debt, it might be helpful to educate yourself on the tricks of the credit business.  Dileep Rao has an informative article at Forbes that I would recommend.  

I find that it creates great motive to stay off the addiction of credit card debt and borrowing!

change your view of debt, reprint

/ Craig / Leave a comment

No doubt many of us have had to confront the reality of our debts and the subsequent pain required to pay them off.  Surely the shake-down of credit and debt in the global economy has forced the average person to get their head out of the sand!  My recent read through the book of James got me thinking about the efforts many North Americans have made to avoid “looking or feeling poor” and how those behaviours attached to credit are making us all suffer.  It does elict grief:  James writes, “Now listen you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  Your gold and silver are corroded.  Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.  You have hoarded wealth in the last days” (James 5:1-3).  Ouch!  That’s hot!  A survey of the world shows that we have lived like kings and queens in North America.  We have hoarded, spent, and trivialized great blessings until now they are slipping away.  What to do?  Well one this is to change your view of debt.  Below is a reprint of an article I wrote for one of my other blogs.

One of the issues on your way toward financial freedom is to settle how you view debt.  You have to change your thinking.  Most of us in North America it seems have accepted one or more of the numerous mantra’s about debt.  One of the most laughable I heard from a member in our last provincial government was, “We are going spend ourselves out of debt.”  Total confidence…sheer lunacy. 

Many of us came to our views of debt honestly in the adventure of paying for school and trying to enjoy a level of life that was beyond our means.  That first credit card application was a rush.  We felt so responsible, so grown up, so trusted.  The first credit card has become an unfortunate rite of passage.  And then they increased our limit.  Oh, we must be doing something right; see they want to trust us with more money.  Some of us even looked for bragging rights by comparing the size of our credit limit.  The shocker comes though with the first run of bills after graduation.  Our first year salaries and our hoped for lifestyle are not congruent with the size of our debt.

And then the pattern of debt creation continues as we justify added credit cards and debt with the, “Oh, its just for emergencies.”  We make promises, we do not make adjustments.  We have regular emergencies like dates, groceries, birthdays, Christmas, cell phone bills.  And then the extraordinary like broken cars.

If you are going to become a person of means with growing wealth you must become a person with the character required to steward wealth.  More money is not necessarily the whole solution you need.  Your character for managing wealth grows by dealing with the beliefs and emotions you have connected to debt.  Here are four views on debt I believe you need to integrate into your worldview:

1.  Debt makes me a slave to the lender.   The Bible’s wisdom reminds us:  “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”  Proverbs 22:7  If you have debt you are a slave to your lenders.  Debt / Credit is our new form of slavery.  We are all singing new forms of the old song, “I owe my soul to the company store.”

2.  Debt is a trap from which I must escape.  Again the Bible’s wisdom reminds us:  “If you have put up security for your neighbour, if you have struck hands in pledge for another, if you have become entrapped by what you have said…then do this my son to free yourself, allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids.  Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from from the snare of the fowler.”  Proverbs 6:1-5  If you are indebted you are entrapped in something that seeks to suck your life away.  Develop some urgency about escaping.

3.  Debt / Credit is not my best plan for paying my monthly expenses;  actually last month’s income is the best plan for paying for this month’s expenses. I have talked to many people who go through the month “collecting points” by using their credit card to pay their regular and irregular expenses throughout the month.  It’s OK they reason, as long as I pay it off at the end of the month.  The trouble is they are never working for themselves.  They are always working to payoff their lender.  As well they have no margin for the unplanned–what happens when they cannot work a month?

4.  Debt / Credit is not my best plan for dealing with emergencies; actually cash is the best plan for dealing with emergencies.   The truth is many of us in North America are just living month to month, week to week with out incomes.  We are just two weeks from financial disaster.  We have bought into the idea that our debt capacity–our credit cards and lines of credit–are acceptable social nets for emergencies.  The worst time to use your credit card is when you need to.  You need to get out of debt; you need an emergency fund that is constructed of dollars not debt.

Changing your mind is a first step for getting out of debt.  I have so appreciated the work of Dave Ramsey on this matter.  His presentations are definitely “in your face” as he attempts to change the minds of North Americans on debt.  You can hear more by going to his .com website formed with his name www.daveramsey.com

its takes a city to raise a child, Timothy Keller

/ Craig / Leave a comment

Here is Timothy Keller, from Redeemer Presbyterian, in New York City talking about parenting in the City.  He admits that the “front nine,” the first nine years of child-rearing is tougher than the “back nine,” the years from 10-18.  This message is so encouraging about parenting my kids in the City and instilling some of the dynamics of Christian faith in this setting.  The hour plus required to listening to this is well worth it!!!!  Here is the link to the talk.