It Wasn't Always Like This...

     Recently, I began a teaching series called, MAD MONEY.  It's a look at the insanity that has become the financial status of most Americans. It's little doubt why 95% of Americans say they fight over finances and the #1 cause of divorce in the US is financially related. But... it hasn't always been that way.

     This society on debt-overload has not always been such. In the 1930's and 40's, most people were severely scarred by the Great Depression. As a result, they seldom borrowed and lived well beneath their means. Little, if anything, was wasted. Debt was a totally foreign concept.

     In the 1950's and 60's people began the concept of borrowing for a home. The average mortgage for a home was $13,500. Then came the 1970's and 1980's. If borrowing for a home was a good idea, then how about borrowing for homes, cars and even large items such as appliances. This is when Credit Cards started to be popular and the concept of revolving debt came into practice...basically, the idea of getting people in debt and keeping them in debt. 

     Things can change quickly. In 1929 only 2% of homes had a mortgage. Fast-forward, only 40 years, to 1969 and now, suddenly, only 2% of homes don't have mortgages! That's quite a turnaround... Put another way, it took only 40 years for us to become a Debtor Nation. Not that all debt is bad, but staying in it is. When debt becomes just an expected part of life...all our life...something has gone terribly wrong.

     In their book, The Millionaire Next Door, authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko interviewed people from affluent neighborhoods and form middle-class neighborhoods. They findings were pretty astonishing. Much of what they found in the affluent neighborhoods were families with lots of "stuff", but little money. They were highly leveraged in debt, with little cash resources.

     On the other hand, those in middle-class neighborhoods tended to lived beneath their means, drive used cars, live in more modest homes, were wise shoppers (watch for those sales and clearance items), were systematic savers and had much less "stuff". However, they were less leveraged in indebtedness and had more cash reserves. 

     BOTTOM LINE: Many who seemed to live more affluent lifestyles were not necessarily more affluent. They tended to go into more debt to support their lifestyle...a lifestyle they were not necessarily able to afford. In other words, they were PRETENDERS. 

     The reality is, we have become a nation of PRETENDERS. We have adopted a "pretentious" lifestyle that says we have the capacity to afford things that, in reality, we cannot. We have gone from a nation with no debt to a nation that goes into debt for our homes, to a nation that commonly goes into debt for cars, appliances, vacations, home remodels, toys of a grand variety...basically, just about anything. It's just the way we do business. It's just the way we've chosen to live life.

It's the new normal.

     Listen to what God's Word says..."A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life." (Proverbs 13:7 MSG) And again, Solomon writes, "Better to be a nobody and yet have a servant than to pretend to be somebody and have no food." (Proverbs 12:9 NIV) Is that a word we desperately need to hear today? I think so. It was written thousands of years ago, but sounds like something that was written for the 21st Century American. Let me take a few liberties with that scripture...Better to be a nobody (if by somebody you mean how many toys we possess and how many people we are trying to impress with what we have) than to pretend to be somebody and have no food (as in no reserves for the future, no plan to take us to 90 years old with an inheritance to leave our children, ruled by trying to keep up with the Jones'...when there's always a new crop of Jones' cropping up after we've finally managed to keep up with the last group). That's a horrible way to live, with no win to be found...ever!

     I know, this is not the popular view...but, it's God's view, so maybe that trumps popular.

A "plain and simple life is a full life". Do you believe that?

Or do you believe the world's theory...He who dies with the most toys wins? I think maybe it should read, He who dies with the most toys probably died much too young due to the stress of paying for all those toys...and now someone else gets to play with them cause you're dead!

     Years ago my wife put a large sign up in our kitchen that just read SIMPLIFY.  Maybe we should locate that sign once again and bring it back, read it daily and heed its message. I think God is on to something. I think a plain and simple life is a full life. Less stress. Less debt. Less payments. More LIFE. Think about it.