Freedom From Debt

Paying off a heavy debt

I'm visiting one day with a relative named Rose. We’re grieving over a recent death in our extended family, a woman who’d been on hospice for several months. She’d had a good long life. She was ready to go home to be with Jesus. But it’s still sad to lose her.

To my surprise, Rose tells me that I was mentioned in the family member’s will. (Can’t help thinking that this sounds like something out of a cheap novel. But it did actually happen to me. Really.) Rose was closer than me to our lost loved one and was therefore aware of the terms of the will even before her passing.

It’s not a huge inheritance. It won’t change my basic lifestyle. After recovering from the initial shock, I begin mulling over my options, looking at my budget and upcoming expenses. Should I put it in savings for the future or spend it now?

My mind keeps going back to one theme: I don’t like being in debt. (Other than the pretty-much-unavoidable mortgage and often-necessary car loan.) There was a time when I’d write a check for the full amount on my credit card bill each month. There was a time when I was able to pay cash for a new car. (Once).

All that changed. Unexpected expenses hit. I could no longer work due to a health issue, but I didn’t qualify for disability benefits. I had to start pinching pennies as I dipped into my retirement savings.

I knew my financial situation would turn around at some point, and I had a low-interest credit card, so I started carrying an increasing balance on it. To keep it from growing too quickly, and to reassure myself that it would be paid off one day, I wrote a check for about ten percent of the balance each month. It made sense to postpone some payments until things got better.

But then they got worse. That turn-around kept being delayed. Interest rates went up. My debt grew. For the last year, I’ve only been making the minimum monthly payment. Every time I open the new bill, I feel this dreaded, depressing weight on my shoulders.

So it isn’t hard to decide where to put that little extra income. Once the money is in the bank, I transfer a chunk of it from my checking account to my credit card bill. Paid in full. Instantly.

And I feel so light and happy and relieved and excited! I want to dance around the house, to call all my friends and tell them, to simply sit and exult in my new-found freedom from this debt. I send many, many thank You’s up to God, along with apologies for letting the situation worry me so much instead of trusting Him.

Paying off an even bigger debt

A few weeks later I wonder: Have I ever felt this excited, this thrilled, this happy for my freedom from the burden of my sins? No.

I wasn’t one of those people who was so weighed down by guilt and shame that accepting the gospel brought a tremendous sense of freedom. Just the opposite. It took months for God to convince me that I could never be good enough on my own to deserve to spend eternity in His presence. I became a Christian, not for relief from present suffering under a deep sense of sin, but to avoid future suffering in hell.

We sing songs in church about how we were going through life with a terrible burden until we saw the light and were suddenly freed by God’s incredible grace. I sing along, but I honestly can’t relate to that story. I obviously reached the point where I recognized my inability to save myself. I confessed, repented, and asked Him to forgive me. I was, and am, deeply thankful for His grace and mercy.

But I missed out on an experience that some people have at conversion: An intense awareness of the sudden, life-changing transformation from filthy, worthless sinner to totally forgiven saint. And I’m a little jealous.

I’m grateful that I was never in that dark and lonely pit, wallowing in the mire of self-loathing over a sin-drenched lifestyle. But as the Bible points out in Luke 7:36-50, those who’ve come to Christ out of that lifestyle have a deeper, richer understanding of the enormity of God’s grace.

(Let me be clear here. I know now that my burden of sin prior to salvation was just as heavy, just as bleak, just as putrid as anyone else’s. My emotional relief wasn’t as intense, but that was due to my own blindness at the time. My need for forgiveness was just as great as any other sinner’s.)

The analogy

I’ve heard sermons where we’re asked to imagine being suddenly freed from a large financial debt, and to use that imagery to increase our appreciation for what Jesus did for us on the cross. I could kinda sorta visualize what it might be like to be struck with that type of forgiveness. But it didn’t come anywhere close to actually living it.

I paid off a significant debt that had been weighing me down for years! All at once! With just a few keystrokes on my computer! My slate was wiped completely, beautifully, shiningly clean!

And I can’t even take credit for the pay-off. It wasn’t anything I’d done, anything I’d earned. It was an unexpected, undeserved gift. A generous provision from someone who loved me more than I’d realized up until that moment.

Just like God’s gift of salvation.

I didn’t earn it. I didn’t deserve it. It came through an unexpected channel—grace and faith, not works. It was incredibly generous and given by Someone who loves me more than I can ever comprehend.

So now I’m thanking God, not just for the financial relief, but also for this opportunity to see His grace in a new way. I didn’t feel the lifting of an enormous and dreadful weight at my conversion, although that’s what actually happened. But now, because of this freedom from a worldly debt, I can better understand and appreciate my freedom from an infinitely greater spiritual debt.