marriagehelper.blogspot.com

Mark Gungor and laughable sex

2011-04-21T18:15:00.003-04:00

Recently, (yes, I know you are not supposed to start a sentence with an adverb...I don't care) my wife and I went on a marriage retreat. The guy leading the retreat was a great guy, but he came carrying DVD's. I'm thinking...we hired this guy and he's going to show us DVD's of someone else?...and yes he did.

Here's the thing. The guy on the DVD was great! His name is Mark Gungor and his website is http://www.laughyourway.com/. His DVD based marriage seminar is called, "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage."

It made me realize two really important things as I try to help others in their marriage. First, I have nothing on Sex and Mark has some really good stuff. Second, I'm just not that funny. Ah...more to work on.

It really is great stuff and that's no copout!

Thanks for reading

Ashley Judd and Wow!

2011-04-06T22:48:00.002-04:00

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42432538/ns/today-books/

Above is a link to an interview with Ashley Judd on the Today show from last Tuesday. It's really remarkable the things she has been through and the work it sounds like she does. It's funny (not ha, ha funny) that she sounds very politically correct when discussing different things. For instance she talks about, "God, as I know him." I guess it's really sad in a way. Not because she couches some of her language in what some might consider political correctness, but because some will discount what she says because of it. Her book sounds like it contains a very powerful story. Without reading it myself I am going to recommend it simply based on this interview. If you have been through some of the things that she mentions (growing up in an alcoholic family, neglect, sexual abuse) I think this book may speak to you. Good reading.

Does Technology Enable Relationships?

2011-03-06T22:18:00.003-05:00

Have you ever had a conversation with someone looked away for a second and when you look back they are texting someone? PLeeeeeze tell me it's not just me!

I so want to say, "it's not the technology, it's how we use it." Which is right, but it's also wrong. We are a society of short attention spans. Sometimes I think that technology just makes that attention span even shorter. So if you have a relationship with a short attention spanned techno warrior what do you really have? There's even commercials that play on this where two guys are at a table in a cafe and they are texting each other instead of talking. Is that real?

It's kind of like the whole Wii thing where people play tennis on the Wii and think they can really play tennis. Tennis is played with a little round yellow ball, not a wireless joystick. When these same Wii warriors go outside they are dismayed reality. So what? If they got exercise indoors why bother with the real thing? Maybe because the real thing is real? One of my kids cartoon movies, "Wall-E" shows a bunch of people living on a spaceship and they all live in a kind of virtual reality. They are ushered around on floating chairs and don't actually even look at each other unless it's on a screen. Kind of weird...but not far off reality.

So, back to short attention spans and texting.... I don't text. That costs extra. But if I did would I be looking at my phone every 5 minutes like everyone else? Would I sit in meetings with my head down and my thumbs pumping ferverishly? I hope not.

Does technology enable relationships? The mail helps keep people in contact who write letters to each other. The telephone helps keep people in contact who call each other. Maybe the internet could help me keep in contact with my wife and kids if they ever go to Budapest for a summer break? Who knows...crazier things have happened.

Random acts of violence

2011-02-14T21:30:00.005-05:00

So I hear there is a woman who has killed her children again. Not that she killed them twice, but that the whole type of event has happened again. What is happening?! We started in the 1980's with Pat Sherrill the first postal worker to go nuts and start shooting. Since then all we have done is pick up steam. People shoot their co-workers, their ex after the divorce, their classmates. No place is immune. We had it happen right here in Knoxville when a loony walked into a church and opened fire.
I can remember talking about it in one of my seminary classes around 1992 and the professor (Glenn Stassen) was saying at that point he had been unable to find any instance of something like that happening in Europe. Well...it has happened since then. So what is going on in society to make people go so nuts that they think opening fire is any kind of alternative?
I can't say that I am entirely sure, but I think it has to do with our expectations of life being so different than life really is. Here's the thing. Life is hard. For some people life is awful...from the time they are born till the time they die all they know is hunger, violence, addiction, and abuse (think of say...a crack whore's baby). For other people born into more "normal" situations think of the rampant physical and sexual abuse that is more and more prevalent in society. Let's make it even more Beaver Cleaver than that. Let's take someone who grows up in a two parent family with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever.
Gotcha. That family doesn't exist. You can't have 2.5 kids. But there is this idealized standard somewhere in our subconscious that says we should be part of a normal family where life is easier than our life is. We see it in stories growing up. We watch it on television shows. We see families that look more appealing than ours in movies. We are bombarded with those same messages without mercy in advertising.
How can we get the message out that the make believe world isn't the real world? Maybe a reality TV show? Maybe we could follow around a "typical American family" and see how they live? Nah...that'd never work.
All the messages out there don't push us all over the limit. I'm not saying they do and I don't know anyone who is saying they do. I think they do help push some people over the limit. Those who are already on the fringe. Take someone who doesn't have a support system. No friends, alienated, loners.
Think about this. For all the random acts of violence we have you never read about a gang member doing this kind of thing. Their violence is targeted (sometimes they mistake their targets, but I've never heard of them going off in a suicidal rage). You don't have mafia hit men going nuts and walking in and shooting up the pizza place. Even those folks have relationships.
So what does all this mean? First, it means make sure you have support so you don't go off the deep end yourself. Second, it means reach out to those around you and make sure they know they are loved and welcomed. Third, if you see a loner...turn off the TV and internet, buy a flack jacket, and take them out to dinner. The life you save may be your own.

Civility in the Home

2011-01-24T21:20:00.003-05:00

A recent article by Susan Hauser in Workforce Management suggests that incivility in the workplace may be costing the U.S. economy billions (with a "b") of dollars every year. So what is incivility? It is everything from the workforce bully to simply not saying, "hello" to your co-workers. To combat workplace incivility many consultants and organizations have sprung up to educate and work towards making the workplace a better place.
Pier Forni, a professor at Johns Hopkins, is quoted in the article and it explains his viewpoint on how to create a civil workplace. He says it comes down to the "Three R's: Restraint, respect, and responsibility." Jill Bremer, a consultant, working in the field mentioned that as casual dress has become more commonplace so has casual conversation (as opposed to professional conversation).
Think about this whole issue of civility in the workplace. How civil is your work environment? Do people recognize each other after a difficult interaction with a customer? Or...do they simply say, "whew, I'm glad I didn't get that one!" Do people say, "please" or "thank you?" As a lot of communication is non-verbal what do people's attitudes communicate? What about their tone of voice?
Most of us spend eight to nine hours a day at work. Our relationships there are a major part of our lives. Do we put in the effort to be civil at work? Now, if we do it at work, how much more should we do it at home?

The Great State of Pennsylvania

2011-01-17T20:53:00.004-05:00

I want to briefly tell you the story of Rosetto, a small city in Pennsylvania. It was founded by immigrants 1882. The citizenry was uniformly Catholic. All the citizens shared the same faith and thus same church. It was a mining town and everyone's work life rotated around mining. Furthermore they lived in close proximity. A town with houses nearly one on top of the other similar to a small European community. Nothing about this is spectacular. Many cities share similar characteristics, but Rosetto had another factor that made it different. All of the inhabitants of Rosetto came from Roseto, Italy.

There was minimal influence from outside society. Households generally were made up of three generations. So there were tight relationships within family households. The city as a whole had close relationships focused around faith and work. These relationships sustained the citizenry not just emotionally and spiritually, but physically as well.

The proof? Extensive studies show that among the people of Rosetto it was very, very rare for anyone to have a heart attack under the age of 65. This despite poor diets, overweight citizens, and life in the mines. The people of Roseto shared doctors and hospitals with other nearby towns. After all the research eliminated cause after cause the research pointed to only one cause for the longevity of those living in the town. Relationships. Relationships have the power to heal and the power to sustain. Living life in dynamic relationship with others is what we were created for.

I learned of Rosetto in Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers" and the website http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376462/.

Remember what we are here for.

Let's get it going

2011-01-09T21:01:00.003-05:00

So I have not done anything with this blog in years. I have good intentions about trying to keep it up and to finish my book (about faith and relationships), but without any deadlines I'm not getting it done. As I listen to the news from time to time I am constantly reminded of the poor state of our relationships. Whether it is the man who shot the judge, the nine year old boy, and the senator or the guy the year before that opened fire on his ex-wife and her family killing them all and burning down their trailer...I just feel like I've got something to offer.

It isn't that much, but it's something. My basic message is that we are made for relationships and that relationships are hard. I've got a little more, but that's the main gist of it. I think we are confused about why we are here and we expect it to be a bit easier.

Some people think we are just here until we are worm food. Or we are here to enjoy life as best we can...until we get to that worm food stage. Or maybe we are here so we can point out where everyone else is wrong. I guess people have been trying to figure out why we are here as long as...well as long as we've been here.

I think we are here for relationships. Love your God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. And it ain't easy. That's my message. Get ready for more where that came from.

Drew

Forgiveness Pt. 6: The Easy Five Step Plan

2008-07-15T21:54:00.001-04:00

Now, the milkman story applies to what I call “small forgiveness.” Most of what I’ve discussed previously are in the context of “large forgiveness.” The small things, the daily irritations, the social snubs, the pains and itches of life that while irritating don’t stop us in our tracks. Now and then though, we do get stopped in our tracks. Life takes a brick and throws it through the windshield of our lives. We come to a screeching halt and just do not know how to move ahead.

“What happened? My windshield is busted. That just about scarred me to death.”
“Who threw that brick?”
“Where did it come from?”
“How do you expect me to continue driving with a brick through my windshield? There is glass all over the place and I am hurt and bleeding.”
“When am I going to fix this mess so I can move on along?”

Big forgiveness requires effort…a lot of effort. On exceedingly rare occasion something big might happen to a person that can seemingly shrug it off or say a single prayer and move on with their day. I would say that generally people to act like forgiveness happens that way are lying to themselves and everyone else at the same time.
Forgiveness, true forgiveness takes effort and time. We are not God. We can’t snap our fingers (does God have fingers?) and forgive. We human beings almost adore the skeletons in our closets. We nurse them and almost refuse to set them on the curb and be done with them. However….
However, if you follow my easy, pleasy five step plan of forgiveness and send $19.99 to my publisher I’m feeling confident that you will be on your way (again I digress into cynicism and sarcasm, but what did you really expect? Yes, I do have a five step forgiveness plan and it sounds cheesy just typing it out loud, but…I really do think it will help. I really do think we need better framework for forgiveness. We need some direction. This is what I came up with. Use it, adapt it, or throw it out…it’s your choice).
Step one. Understand the WHY. Why do we need to forgive? Realize that you need to forgive for your own selfish reasons most of all. “Selfishness” is almost universally regarded as a negative trait, but when it comes to forgiveness selfishness is in reality a gift from God. We are the ones who benefit most from forgiveness. We are freed from resentment. We are rejuvenated when our emotional and intellectual energy are freed up for better tasks. We are able to move ahead in our lives and leave our interaction with our injurer as part of our story, part of our past, part of who we are, but not the totality of who we are. We need to forgive…for ourselves.
Step two. Understand the WHAT? What happened to you? Define it as many ways as possible. Defining what happened more than one way helps to create a deeper understanding of what actually did happen. For example if you were assaulted by someone you know then many, many things happened. There was a physical assault. There was a breach of trust. There was an invasion of relational boundaries. There was an adjustment to your personal belief that your friends would not do something like that to you. It wasn’t just a physical assault. Knowing “the what” will help you understand more completely what it is you need to forgive.
Step three. Understand the WHERE. The “where” sounds pretty darn simple. It happened here! To you! You are the where. The injury is yours. If someone else was injured then their injury is theirs. But is it really that simple all the time? What about a parent that either has an accident or is hit by another driver. They may be injured, but so may their child. Maybe they are fine and their child or other passenger is the only one hurt. Maybe the injury is temporary like a broken arm, but maybe there are permanent facial scars on a perfect newborn’s face, or maybe there is permanent brain damage. Where is the injury to you? If a loved one is injured by someone else along with your then where is the “where” that you have to forgive?
Where did the injury to you occur. How do you define your injury when someone for destroys your family? Your parents? Your children? Can you forgive an attacker for attacking someone else? Well, were your dreams destroyed? Was your life with your family destroyed? Was your hope for the future destroyed? So…maybe there was something done to you after all. You just have to find it, define it, understand it, and then swallow it so you can spit it back out.
Let’s sum up how we are able to forgive (to remember the past, put it into perspective, and move beyond it).
What Happened? Define it as many ways as you can.
Where? Here! Your injury happened to you. Their injury happened to them. Injuries to loved ones are tough to sort out, but try to define how their injury affected you or your relationship with them.
Who? Who is to blame for this injury? Was it an accident, an intentional act, or a secondary result from a previous action? You have to assign blame in order to forgive.
When? When do I (you) start this forgiving, defining, blaming process? When do I start to heal? When? When you start.
How? It is a process. A messy process. We have defined and blamed, now you have to do you. You have to strengthen yourself. Remind yourself you are not just a victim-you have power. You must get yourself to realize that you have the mental, emotional, and spiritual power to “move beyond the past” and create a new life for your road that lies ahead.

Whether it is a “small” injury that you can “gift” to the injurer or a larger injury that takes years of solitary effort; you can forgive. You should forgive. It is not letting the offender off the hook. It is stripping the offender of the power to continue to hurt you. Their personal weakness, shortcomings, or insanity impacted you. Regain yourself. Regain your strength. Look up and see your life beyond your injury.

Forgiveness Pt. 5: Grace the Milkman

2008-07-15T21:27:00.003-04:00

So what have we done? We have blamed someone for the injury, we have regained our strength, now comes throwing the switch and actually forgiving…moving beyond the injury. I read a story once (actually I read a lot of stories, but this one is actually germane to the topic at hand), a very old tale about a milk man (No! Not that milk man story…this is a different one). A particular customer had requested some extra milk one week. The milkman had delivered it as requested, but when he got paid for the month the customer had shorted the milkman the money for the extra milk.
It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but the milkman couldn’t quit thinking about it. He became more and more bitter every time he made a delivery to the family and complained incessantly to his friend about the transgression. Now the milkman was realizing that the unpaid milk was costing him more than it should. It was his time, his energy, his emotions that were caught up in the whole “milk scandal.” So his friend had a suggestion for him.

“Why not make a gift of the milk.”
“What do you mean…”make a gift of the milk” they have already stolen it from me. How do I make a gift of it?”
“If you make a gift for it they never really owed for it in the first place; did they?”
“So you are suggesting that this milk that they requested, that they didn’t pay for, that I delivered, that they have already enjoyed…. This milk they didn’t pay for; you want me to make it a retroactive gift?”
“If you make it a gift then they didn’t steal it—you gave it to them.”

So a couple of days go by and eventually the milkman was able to make a gift of the milk. He realized that though they were to blame for the lack of payment and he was at a loss for payment; he was a more substantial person than to get all upset about some lost milk. By and by he found that his demeanor changed when approaching the house. He ceased to speak ill of the family. In fact he actually began to feel that he had done something good. Maybe someone in the family had been ill and required extra milk. Perhaps that had happened at a time of financial hardship. Even if it didn’t it felt good to know he had given a gift.

Then something else happened.

The lady of the house stepped outside one day as he was making his usual delivery. She was reconciling her statements and had realized that she had shorted his payment several weeks before. In her hand, at the end of her outstretched arm was the money she had owed.

Now here is a part of forgiveness we often overlook.

The milkman told her he couldn’t accept the payment. It was kind of an awkward social moment. Why wouldn’t he be able to accept payment? It was his business to make money delivering milk. It was the customer’s responsibility to pay. She didn’t understand. The milkman hesitated… Then beginning, slowly at first, and with a bit of embarrassment told her how angry he had been. He told her how resentful he had become when he had made deliveries since then. The customer, quite taken aback, didn’t know what to think for a bit. Here was this man telling her how angry he had been, but the whole time he had this large grin on his face. His demeanor was cheerful, but here he was talking about anger and bitterness towards her.
Then the milkman told her of how he knew he needed to get over it, but he just couldn’t seem to. He told her about his friend’s suggestion to make a gift of the milk and about how he had done just that.

“But, why won’t you take the money now?”
“Because I can’t take payment for a debt you don’t owe. It was and is a gift from me to you.”

At it’s core forgiveness is about grace. Grace makes us better people. Grace makes whoever is forgiven better and forgiving better. Try this, the next time you are standing in a long line and someone cuts into the queue by “saying hello” to an old friend they would otherwise never acknowledge…make a gift of your place in line. Is it worth your anger? Is it worth your resentment? Are you running late? Do you have somewhere important to go and you had to pick up this one last minute thing? Then forgive yourself for not planning better. If someone else is affected as well then give them a call if you possibly can and let them know you miscalculated the amount of time and you are running behind. The fellow who cut in line...just make a gift of that little bit of space between you and the next car and go on with your day.

Forgiveness Pt 4: Your are the expert and are strong

2008-07-13T18:32:00.000-04:00

If up till now I seem to be a bit cynical or sarcastic about other’s views of forgiveness and viewpoint in general let me assure you that you are not incorrect. That does not mean I am being most constructive when I am cynical and sarcastic. It’s just with so many “self help” books, faith based or otherwise, out there with little or no redeeming value it is hard for me to take the whole genre with much seriousness.
Even this that I am writing should be taken with a grain of salt. I am only an expert in my own life…and I’m making that up as I go. I don’t hold a PhD... I’m not a certified counselor. Sometimes I have a hard time holding my own relationships together. When I look at many others my age who are more accomplished I am almost embarrassed. They have finished their doctoral degrees. Their degrees may even be from more prestigious schools. They may make more and live in larger houses. The reason for this (at least in part) is because this is where they have focused their effort…their careers, their education.
I am, on one hand, proud to say that I have spent an inordinate amount of time building relationships. I have always felt it is people that are most important. Maybe that is my calling from God…to put people first.
In the past I had a lot of good friends. Then I got married. My wife has become the center of my life. Now that we have a child, he too is at the center. My friends have taken a back seat. I hardly call them, email them, write them, or see them. I’m reminded of something a man in Louisville once told me. He was in his 50’s (I guess) and was a member of the YMCA where I worked while I was in seminary. I’m not sure how we got on the topic, but he mentioned he didn’t have any friends.
He told me he went to work, came to the “Y” to work out, and then went home to his wife. He, the same as I (at this point in my life) didn’t keep in touch with old friend and acquaintances. Now don’t misunderstand this was not a sad, depressed man getting ready to walk out into traffic without looking both directions. He was smiling when he told me this and was generally one of the happiest people I had the pleasure of knowing there. It’s just how it is sometimes in life.
Sometimes, even when we are keeping up with our friendships and acquaintances we can experience great loneliness. I’ve kind of lost track of where I was going with all that except to say that I am not the final word in your relationships…you are. The things I am sharing with you are tools, perspectives, information, stories. You can take and use them. You can get bored and reject them. You can glean what you can and use it to help yourself and others you come into contact with. It’s your choice.
Despite my cynicism and sarcastic tendencies it is love that I want to share with you. My love for you and my love for seeing people love each other. Isn’t that a precious thought? I feel like Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live (I’ve got a feeling I’ll be mentioning him now and again).
Now then, where was I? Oh yes, we were blaming someone for hitting me over the head with a frying pan---not that anyone has really done that, but you get the idea. If you don’t blame anyone then you can’t forgive anyone.
In several different places I have read that forgiveness comes from a position of strength. However, if we have been abandoned, taken advantage of, robbed, or somehow invaded then the question begs; how are we in a position of strength? Well, at least initially we aren’t.
When I was doing my training for family and divorce mediation I learned there was a large number of a divorcee’s who did two specific things; run marathons and go to medical school. It rang true because I knew a girl who was going through a divorce and was preparing for both (medical school and a marathon). When her husband hit her she was not in a position of strength. When she decided to divorce him and run the marathon and go back to school she was proving to herself (and others) how strong she really was. When a marriage ends there is a huge hole in a person’s life. They have been putting a huge amount of emotional energy into their relationship for months if not for years, and now they have no one to pour that energy into. Hence, marathons and medical school.
Besides being a reservoir to pour energy into these things (and plenty of others) fill a role in the process of healing and forgiving. Accomplishing goals, stepping out and doing new things, learning who you are again; and doing so on your own effort (as opposed to the effort of family and friends…I’m not saying they won’t be a help – nor am I making a theological statement that you are doing these things apart from God) creates power for yourself. The accomplishment tells you that despite what someone did to you, you are strong and intelligent. You are a person of fortitude.
Medical school and marathons may be a bit extreme. Your power may come from getting a job after being a stay at home mom for years. After joining the workforce you may realize (you need to realize) that you are valuable, do have skills, and can make a contribution. The person(s) that hurt you took from you choices, financial resources, and/or your personal freedom. As you gain strength you are creating a solid foundation from which to forgive.

Forgiveness Pt. 2 - Laying the Blame

2008-07-13T18:30:00.000-04:00

Now don’t get me wrong; here in a few pages I’m going to have my own list of steps on how to forgive. I’m just trying to break up the tension a little bit, because what we are discussing here is really serious stuff. People say and do silly little things at work everyday that get under your skin. Companies fire you for reasons you don’t think are valid. Punks rob you. Thugs break into your home. Relatives molest other relatives. People get raped. People get murdered. There is a lot to forgive in our world today.
When I was growing up my mom used to say, “I never said life was fair.” That’s the truth. We don’t always get what we deserve. Religious leaders and well meaning people will delude themselves and others into not taking action, suppressing emotions, or burying the truth by saying the actions of others will catch up to them some day. Well…it doesn’t always happen that way. And yet…. And yet if we don’t forgive we are stuck in a place in our lives where the event, the action, the scar they left is all we seem to be able to focus on. Or maybe we bury it and never acknowledge the crime done to us. The thing is we can never forgive a wrong if we don’t admit a wrong has been done. How do you ever forgive someone if you won’t admit that they did anything to you?
I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Flanigan when she says that to forgive someone you first have to blame them. Sometimes, I don’t like to assign blame. I’ve never walked in that person’s shoes. I don’t know what life experiences they have had that led them up to that point. It didn’t really do much of any real harm and I know they have had a tough time. The thing is…everyone is responsible for his or her own actions. There are a lot of people out there who have been through some pretty terrible stuff; abuse, neglect, rape, molestation, death of loved ones, and more. Many of these people are caught up in destructive patterns of behavior that they have tried unsuccessfully to escape. When it comes down to it; when they do something bad to you it is their fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not their parents fault. It’s not their attacker’s fault if they were previously victims. It is their fault.
If someone hurts you the blame is on them. Not you. Not anyone else. You will never really be able to forgive them if you don’t blame them. You have to state it, say it out loud, yell it, or at least acquiesce to it…. “It is your fault this happened. You are the reason I am hurt. I blame you.” I know in the past (and still to a certain extent in the present) I have a strong tendency to want to “walk in the other person’s shoes.” That is I want to explain away their behavior by saying their past led them to this…it’s not really their fault. Well, the thing is their past wasn’t swinging a frying pan at my head…it was them!
Understanding someone’s background will help you understand why they did it (maybe), but it isn’t an excuse. Whether they are an adult or a child (to be held accountable legally or not) if they did something to you then they did something to you. This isn’t a commentary on our justice system. I’m not saying children should be treated like adults in the courts (I’m not saying they shouldn’t be either). I’m saying for the sake of forgiveness, if you don’t blame someone there is no one to forgive!

Forgiveness Pt 1: The resources are out there

2008-07-13T15:53:00.001-04:00

The book was called “Total Forgiveness” and I had high hopes for it. The author had gone to the same seminary as I did and he was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London for twenty-five years. I figured he had been around a “high brow” congregation for a while. “High brow” congregants typically are snooty because they are intelligent and won’t let a pastor get by with a lot of meaningless religious jargon every Sunday morning (unless it is very, very pretty sounding religious jargon).
The first couple of pages of the book were devoted to various pastors and leaders saying good things about the book. There were some really conservative names. There were some people I had never heard of. There were also some people that, for me anyway, led instant credibility to the book. For example; Cliff Barrows of Billy Graham Crusade organization lent his name and credence to the book as did Tony Campolo.
I was really excited because so much of what I had uncovered in Christian circles about forgiveness was just a bunch of empty nothingness. “We need to forgive because we are commanded to forgive.” “Forgiveness is essential to the Christian life.” “We must forgive and forget.” Blah, blah, blah…. Most of the stuff I’ve read growing up in church and even in seminary doesn’t define forgiveness. It doesn’t give you any clear understanding of what may be involved in forgiveness. It doesn’t even really give you a clue when you may or may not have actually forgiven someone.
With this book I was really expecting something different. I don’t know why I was expecting something different. There must be part of me that is an eternal optimist. However…once I started reading…nothing new at all…it was just the same old same old. At one point it looked like it was going to get personal as the author told about some issue where he hadn’t forgiven someone. Unfortunately, he did not give any details…which means he didn’t make it personal. I’m gonna have a hard time finishing the book.
I am thankful that some time before picking up “Total Forgiveness” I picked up “Forgiving the Unforgivable.” I had just had a fight with my wife and saw it in the bookstore. We had been arguing (I don’t remember if it was just before getting up or just as we were going to sleep) in bed and I got mad and got up and slammed my pillow down…partially on her head. Now the pillow didn’t hurt her, but the idea that when angry I would resort to ANY sort of physical intimidation or violence scared the shit out of her…and me too!
So I’m thinking…what would make me do something like that? I must have a few skeletons in my closet to make me react like that. I’m the kind of person that when I want to know about something I’ll go read about it. So I was off to the local Barnes & Nobles to get me a dose of self help (just because it may be a “self help” book doesn’t mean God didn’t lead me to it.). What I found was “Forgiving the Unforgivable.” The author, Beverly Flanigan, is a social worker and makes no comment throughout the whole book on whether or not she is a Christian. However, I can tell you this… regardless of whether or not she is a Christian most of us could learn a lot about forgiveness by listening to what she has to say.
The book does have a distinctive academic tone to it. That is, it isn’t the easiest read. However, there has been a movement in academia lately to urge scholars to write in a more understandable manner. I’ve seen more than one PhD thesis that was published and available in local bookstores. I would place Flanigan’s work in this kind of category. It does have a distinctive academic tone, but it is tempered with the knowledge that if it is too antiseptic no one will read it.
Ms. Flanigan also keeps it real. She gives details on lots of scenarios that she has run across over the years. You can read and clearly understand, sympathize, and/or empathize with the stories. This book isn’t about forgiving someone for stepping on your toe or accidentally getting into your Lexus with mud on their shoes. This book is about big forgiveness. It’s about your life coming unraveled and finding a way to push through it. I love the way she writes about forgiveness.
“To forgive, one must remember the past, put it into perspective, and move beyond it.”[1] She immediately puts aside the notion that forgiving means forgetting. She immediately puts aside the notion that saying, “I forgive you” is anything more than an empty proclamation when real damage has been done. She lets you know that forgiveness is often a solitary journey that is slow and requires persistence.
Quite often we imagine forgiveness taking place only after someone says they are sorry and then wants to be forgiven. However, she points out that in many, many situations the person committing the offence NEVER says they are sorry. Maybe they didn’t realize they did anything. Maybe they have moved to a new city or state with their new boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe they are in prison. The point is that forgiveness can still take place even if you never get an apology.[2]
I was also excited to find some fairly well developed resources on the internet regarding forgiveness. TheForgivenessProject.com, Peacefultommorrows.org, learningtoforgive.com, JourneyTowardForgiveness.com, Forgiving.org, and Forgivenessweb.com are all web sites that have something to offer. I’m not saying that I agree with everything on these websites by any means, but I do think that as a whole they can shed new light, new vision, and create new insights on how to forgive.
It’s really interesting to read the various steps of forgiveness. Journeytowardforgiveness.com has five (5) steps. Fred Luskin has four (4) steps. Victor Parachin has ten (10) guidelines. For the most part they all have some good points and some have a few that I think are actually rather silly. For example Parachin’s number two (2) guideline smacks of Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley when he says, “Spend a few minutes each day cleaning out your thinking.”[3] I’m not saying it’s not a good idea…it just sounds goofy.
The key thing here is that there are some good resources out there on forgiveness…we just have to go and find them.
[1] p 5 “Forgiving the Unforgivable” by Beverly Flanigan. Wiley Publishing.
[2] P23-26 “Forgiving the Unforgivable” by Beverly Flanigan. Wiley Publishing.
[3] http://www.sober.org/ForgVict.html

Finances Pt. 7: The Efficient Budget Puts People First

2008-04-23T20:41:00.006-04:00

Most people who want to save try to save what money is left at the end of the month. The problem is there is rarely anything left. George Clason in his wonderful book, “The Richest Man in Babylon” says, “a part of all you earn is yours to keep.” When I first read that it kind of made me angry. Of course my money is mine to keep! But as I read on I understood what he meant. Just like in the budgets previously mentioned a lot of the money you earn is already designated for other things. However, some of it you keep for yourself. Robert Chilton in “The Wealthy Barber” says, “Pay yourself First.” The guy who wrote “The Automatic Millionaire” says the same thing.

When it comes down to it you won’t be able to ever reach financial security if you don’t save. If you wait till the end of the month to save you will never save. Skim the cream off the top and you will eventually have enough for a very nice stick of butter.

What about all that extra stuff we do to save money. Running the program at the YMCA, volunteering for the symphony, or going to the dollar movie instead of the full price theatre are all obvious ways to save money. Let’s analyze one dollar of money you earn. We’ll look at it two different ways. We will look at it both from the perspective of someone who has debt and spends money like normal people do and then we’ll look at an “Efficient Budget.”

Wow! Living like most people do you are saving a very minimal amount for retirement, spending 20% more on debt and at the end of the month you have a measly 4 cents left on every dollar you earn.

Now let us look at a budget of someone living “The Efficient Life.”

With your Efficient Life Budget (the budget that puts the highest and best use of your life, i.e. relationships, at the center) you even have a little blow money left at the end of the month!!

Some of you read this and thought to yourself; “Why live on the Efficient Life budget if it comes out that you have eight cents left?” Well first of all eight cents is twice four cents. Even more importantly though is the effect it has on your relationships. The better budget puts relationships first and things second. The budget isn’t putting you into debt. It is relieving stress out of your life and relationships. It gets the financial monkey off your back!

Finances Pt. 6: Focus and Snowball Your Debt Away

2008-04-22T22:22:00.006-04:00

Will your finances allow you to impact other people? Can you afford to take extra time off work to work at a habitat blitz? Can you afford to sponsor someone to go on a mission trip to build housing in third world countries? Can you afford to slide a waiter a $20 tip because you know they are struggling financially? If you are like most people…not right now you can’t. Maybe in the future you can. Here is the first thing to do “cut back and sell”. This is about getting out of debt so you can have money to impact others later on.

1. Cut spending
· Cut cable or satellite TV
· Access the internet from work or the library—cut the internet connection
· Cut out eating out—this is a major money drain. Learn to cook and enjoy building family relationships in the kitchen. This includes cutting out trips to Starbucks.
· Cut movie rental or going to the theatre
· Delay major purchases if possible. Do you want a new car or do you need to keep driving your old car?
· Don’t take vacations
· Don’t renew magazine subscriptions (until you are out of debt you can use the library)
· Don’t go nuts at birthdays and Christmas (this is extremely hard to do given what our culture teaches us).
· Keep wearing the clothes you have instead of buying new clothes.
· Cut out the extra features on your phone bill (call waiting, caller ID, etc).
· Cut out the cell phones (One phone and one phone line until you are out of debt).

2. Sell Stuff
· Have a garage sale. Have another garage sale. Then have another garage sale.
· Take books to used book stores and sell them.
· Take old clothes to consignment shops.
· If you have a car with a car payment then sell it and get something to make due with until you can afford something better. If you owe more on the car than it’s worth then sell it for what you can and get a small loan from a credit union or your local bank for the difference (Which is better owing $20,000 on a virtually new car that is only worth $15,000 or selling it for $15,000 buying a used car for $4000 and owing $9000? The answer is the later, because the $4000 car isn’t going to depreciate much more and you just cut your debt by $11,000!!).
· Sell anything you don’t use on a regular basis.

3. Increase your income.
· Get a better job.
· Work a second job.

4. Examine your housing situation
· Are you spending more than 25% of your take home pay on house payments?
· Do you have a two bedroom apartment for yourself?
· Can you live in a smaller apartment or a smaller house?
· Do you have a nicer house than your parents did at their age?
· Do you have a mortgage of fifteen years or less? If you don’t have at least 20% equity in your home you are paying PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance). If you financed close to 100% and have a thirty year note you won’t have 20% equity till you have been paying for 14 years. A fifteen year note gets you 20% equity in under five years and has you nearly paid off in that same 14 years.

5. Focus
· This isn’t going to take forever.
· The more you focus and the deeper you cut the sooner you will be out of debt.

So the first thing extra you can do after the debt snowball is in actuality five things. It can be summed up in one phrase “cut back and sell”. So what you ask is the second thing you can do to get out of debt when you are way, way in over your head? You negotiate. This is tough! If you are so far behind you cannot cover all your minimum payments you have no alternative than to negotiate some of your debt. The collectors have been calling you. Now it is your turn to call them.

First, you have to know what your situation really is. If you have done your budget you know your situation better than they do. Keep it that way. They will try to do your budget for you and show you how to spend your money and pay them first. Don’t do it. All that is under discussion is the amount of your budget that you have allocated to debt reduction. Now don’t think you can skimp out on all your debts by saying, "I only have $100 a month to spend on my debts so won’t you please write it off."

At this point the debt collectors could have a pretty good idea what you make and who you owe. You aren’t going to be pulling the wool over their eyes. You have to be truthful. You have to prioritize your debt. The house payment, the utilities, and the car payment come before the credit cards and the student loans. You don’t stop paying those other loans. You pay what you can and you tell them what you can pay. Then you ask to have your interest frozen or your rate reduced. When they say “no” you ask them this, “Do you have the authority to freeze the interest or reduce the rate?” They will then avoid the question and start asking you other questions. Do not answer. Get their attention. Interrupt them. Then ask them the question again, “Do you have the authority to freeze the interest or reduce the interest rate.” Does the person you are talking to have the authority to lower your minimum payment so that you aren’t piling up more late fees? You have got to keep hammering them until you are sure you are dealing with someone who can do those things. Talking to the first person to answer the phone usually gets you no where.

You may have to hang up. You may need to yell, cry, vent; you may need to scream at the sky…before you call back. It may take days or weeks to get a company to agree to a lower payment. You have got to be persistent. You owe them all the money they say you do. You signed up for all those late fees and interest rates when you got the card. It was and is your fault. That doesn’t mean they aren’t gouging you. You can get some traction with them by your persistence and you showing them you are really trying to get your life back on track.

Now do this for the other five credit cards you have. You will be exhausted. You will learn a lot about these companies through this process. You will learn a lot about yourself through this process. Eventually, through the negotiation and the two extra steps you will start gaining some traction. It may take months, but it will come.

Now is the time to take a look at what you have been saving. Remember that ten percent we have been paying ourselves? The ten percent after the tithe…you have been saving it haven’t you? Well here’s what we are going to do with it. First off we aren’t going to spend all of it. We are just going to spend part of it. Keep $500 to $1000 back for emergencies (not Christmas or birthdays, EMERGENCIES) and use the rest as a negotiation tool.

Imagine that after three months you have $828 saved up. If you keep $500 in your savings account you have $328 to negotiate with. Let’s say you have a credit card you are late on and the balance is $517. You have been calling and calling trying to get them to lower the payment or the rate but they won’t budge. Now you are going to offer them the $328 as payment in full. Maybe they say yes. Maybe they say no. IF they say yes get it in writing! Have them fax it to Kinko’s. Have them pop it in the mail. Don’t send the money till you get it in writing that they are going to take it as payment in full. If they won’t take it as payment in full go on to the next group you owe. Chances are someone will take the $328. Chances are they will give you credit for more than $328. Chances are you will have to get it in writing or they will forget that conversation took place.

So now you have the debt snowball rolling, you are “cutting back and selling,” and you are negotiating with your creditors. You are taking control! Then the washing machine goes out. What do you do? Well remember that $500 you have? You aren’t going to spend $500 on a new washing machine. You are going to have yours repaired. You are going to the scratch and dent and you are buying the cheapest washer that will clean your clothes. OR you are going to use the laundry mat. OR you are going to be doing laundry at a friend’s house and giving them a couple of bucks. Then you are going to go back to what you were doing before. You are tithing, you are paying yourself first, you are prioritizing your spending, you are working your debt snowball, you are cutting back and selling, and you are negotiating.

Remember this whole time you are also communicating with your spouse, kids, etc. about the plan and about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Your are forgiving yourself and those around you for the financial mistakes you have made in the past and the ones you continue to make as you overcome your bad habits. You are celebrating the milestones of paying off each debt and re-creating your life. You are taking control of your life so your relationships can thrive. You are using your money to reinforce the highest and best use of your life. You are on your way to the efficient life!

Finances Pt. 5: Teachable Moments and Temptation

2008-04-22T22:20:00.003-04:00

Getting on a budget and being financially responsible creates “teachable moments” where you can share with your children. It provides a point to start communication. Remember our foundational principles are integrated. If you have had problems communicating with your spouse or “significant other” getting the finances on track gives you something to talk about. It could be there needs to be forgiveness from one party or the other (or even more likely both). It gives work a little bit of new meaning because you can more clearly see how your paycheck is benefiting you and your family. There is cause to celebrate because you are literally re-creating how your family does business. You also have to enforce the boundaries between you and your family vs how society wants you to spend money.

Now look. The debt snowball will help a lot of people. There are some people that are in so deep they need more. Not more as in something else besides the debts snowball, but the debt snowball AND something else. I’ve got two something else’s for you. The first is hard and the second is harder.

1 Timothy 6:6-10 6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Yes, I’m going to ask you to be content with less than you currently have. If you have fallen “into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires” then that probably means you have too much stuff! So sell it! But…first a bit more about why we need to cut back.

Saving money is like the opposite of losing weight. To lose weight you have to burn more calories than you consume. To save money you have to consume fewer dollars than you bring in. The bottom line is that simple. The question is HOW? Standing in stark contrast to our culture and spending less than you make is not easy to do. Every time you drive down the road and see a billboard, turn on the TV or radio and hear a commercial, or open a magazine or newspaper you will see an advertisement that is trying to separate you from your money.

Advertisements generally show bright sunshiny happy sexy people using the product and living carefree lives. Do you think for a second that if you use that product or service your life will really change? For some reason we have bought into this marketing scheme for years and I’m sure we will continue to do so. So how do we continue to live in this culture and not be “of” this culture?

The answer is easy…with great difficulty. My wife and I are trying to live in the culture, but not of it. We have two decent cars, both purchased used, and both paid for. A 1999 Ford Tarus and a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis grace the street in front of our house. That’s right we live in a “blue collar” neighborhood where many homes don’t have garages or even driveways.

Our house is a nice little home. It’s probably the nicest house on the street. We have a front loading washer and dryer, a nicer kitchen than I’ve seen in homes costing over $200,000. We have nice storm doors and a two hundred square foot deck that over looks Lenoir City, The Tennessee River, Tellico Lake, Ft. Loudon Dam, and Ft Loudon Lake. Our bedroom furniture is beautiful Quartersawn oak built by the Amish Borkholder Furniture company. We have good sized closets, two sofa’s and it’s all paid for. It’s nothing flashy, but I’m proud of it. I’m thirty-six years old and I live in a paid for house. It’s only 837 square feet. Some people who know us and know how much we make think we are nuts.

There is a temptation to buy a bigger house. We can definitely afford a payment. We have adjusted our savings again and now we are saving 10% towards retirement, $1000 a month in an emergency fund, and between $400 to $800 a month into a sinking fund for vacations, a new computer, a digital camera, a new chair, and a bigger house. We could drop some of that savings for now and easily enough get a bigger house in a much nicer neighborhood. We could have a garage or even just a driveway for crying out loud. We could have a house with two bathrooms and three bedrooms.

The temptation is incredible some days. There are days when I am searching for properties for other people and I see homes we could be living in. I see homes we could afford. I see homes where we can raise our children (we currently have one on the way). Those days the drive back home is even longer than normal. I want to stop about four or five exits sooner and pull into a nice little convenient neighborhood that could be the place where we live.

That temptation is there on a lot of different levels. We don’t have cable TV or a satellite dish. It’s not that I think TV is evil or we don’t watch much. My wife works for HGTV! We want to watch HGTV and The Food Network, and DIY. However, we already watch “The West Wing,” “Alias,” “Extreme Home Makeover,” “The Apprentice,” and way to many others. Add to that the fact that cable TV or a satellite dishes come with monthly fees. We would love a subscription if we didn’t have to pay $40-60 a month.

There are a lot of things to do that cost money that we have found ways of doing for free, or less expensively. We go to matinees instead of full priced movies. We volunteer for the Knoxville Symphony and get free tickets to performances. We volunteer to usher when we want to see a play. We even run “Freedom Friday” (a parent’s night out program) at the YMCA so we can get a free membership (plus we think the YMCA is a valuable organization that provides great services to families and we want to be a part of that).

Now keep in mind we don’t HAVE to cut corners like that. My wife and I make nearly $70,000 a year. At that level of income we could afford movies, cable, the YMCA, and symphony tickets. Why don’t we just pay the price? We live the way we do because taking financial stress away from our relationship makes our marriage better. We live the way we do because one day we will move into a bigger house and we won’t be financially stretched when we do. We want to know that when our child is born we won’t be burdened by hospital bills. If the transmission in my car goes out it won’t be a major setback to us.

Our relationship is relieved of financial stress because we live a lifestyle we can easily afford. We could afford a much nicer lifestyle. We could even stretch our finances and live a much, much nicer lifestyle. Think about the stress that would put on our relationship though. There would be stress when those hospital bills come in. The transmission really is acting up, what would happen when it finally goes out and we don’t have an emergency fund? I really feel for those who don’t understand how financial security can bless a relationship. Do we have temptation to spend more…you bet we do, but we know the benefits of having “stores of choice food and oil.”

Think about the business world for an example. Airlines are stretched to the brink of bankruptcy after losses brought about by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and now the high cost of fuel. Northwest and Delta are bleeding money. They are cutting flights, employees, and selling off any non-essential business units they can just for the operating cash. Southwest Airlines stands in stark contrast. Several years ago they stored up “food and oil.” That is they purchased what at that time were very expensive fuel futures. They paid a set price in the past for fuel in the future.

Several years ago people may have said they were nuts buying fuel in the future at prices much higher than it was selling for at that time. Southwest had two things going for it. It is a wise company that had an eye on the future. It also had something else. It had enough financial clout to make it happen. The truth is other companies may have known they needed to buy fuel futures, but very few of them were in the financial shape to do it.

Southwest Airlines is a company that is great at relationships. It has great relationships with its employees, unions, suppliers, and customers. One of the factors that allows those relationships to flourish is its financial position. Southwest is in a position to pay its bills on time and protect its own future. Each airlines financial stance affects not only the business itself, but also the banks that lend them money, the suppliers that supply the company, the employees that work for the company, and so on. Everyone’s financial position in that whole business food chain has impact on the others.

Think for a second about the ability to impact others individually. Start with your family. Can you afford to put a roof over your family’s heads? That may sound simplistic, but we do have homeless people in the world. Can you feed your family well? There are children right here in the United States that go to bed hungry day after day. Can you cloth your family? Can you afford to send your kids to college? Can you afford a car to get you to and from a better paying job?

Think outside your immediate family (wife and kids). If something were to happen to one of your siblings would anyone in your family be able to afford to take their children in? Will you be able to afford to take care of your parents as they get older? Could you be generous to a distant relative who needs a new start without hope of ever being repaid? Will your finances allow you to have "teachable moments" with those around you?

Finances Pt 4: Moving The Needle

2008-04-21T20:38:00.003-04:00

In the business world there is a saying I've heard many times. When a company is starting a new sales promotion they often ask if the new discounts or the new sales training or the new program will "move the needle?" That is, will it make things better? Well, how we move our financial needle is to get on a budget.

So what does a budget look like? It can look like all sorts of different things. Some people get paid by the hour and get 40 hours a week. Some regularly get overtime and some get no work when it rains. Some of us are on salary regardless of how much we work and some of us only get paid our commission if we sell something. Budgets will look different for different people.

We can give you a starting point though. I’ll also give you another good reason to do a budget if you’ve got creditors calling. Those collection agents can be unnerving. They can wind you up. You get tense talking to them or avoiding them. You want to do anything you can to shut them up. So some people, LOTS of people actually, will send in a payment on a late credit card BEFORE they pay their electric bill. YIKES!!

The starting point is to pay for the basics first. First and foremost is YOU Incorporated. I’m a big, big fan of paying yourself first. You put aside 10% for the church (5% local/5% to your choice charity) and the second 10% you put aside for you, your family, and your future. Call it an emergency fund, savings, a rainy day account, whatever you will, but put it aside. We’ll be using it now and then along the way, but for now it is yours! However much or little you make save the second 10%!

Now here some people are going to ask if all this tithing and saving another ten percent is before or after taxes. I’m going to side with the talk show host again here and say, “Yes.” I don’t care if it is before or after taxes. So few people actually tithe and so few people actually save that if you do it before tax or after tax you are doing more than most. By the way do you know what the word tithe means? The literal meaning is a “tenth”. The word tithe is actually older than the word tenth. In fact it was the word tenth. It became so “branded” by the church as to be what your were supposed to give to them the word “tenth” had to be created so people would know you were talking about that bit after the “ninth” instead of what you gave to the church.

So you’ve done away with 20% of your income. You already owe lots of people money. You haven’t bought groceries or paid the light bill. You’ve got to be wondering what in the heck I’m thinking. Well, we are prioritizing your spending. First pay God, then pay the family, then pay the bills. Which bills get paid first? Let’s start with the basics. How much do you need for groceries? Then let’s look at the rent or house payment. How much is your electric bill and other utilities ? How much do you really need for clothing, hair care, medical expenses, etc.? What about insurance? Cover the essentials. The debts are not the essentials unless you owe Guido and Uncle Vinny.

Especially, if you are on commission or are paid hourly and don’t know how many hours you will regularly have prioritizing your bill paying is an absolute necessity. It’s much better to have someone calling about a Master Card balance than to be foreclosed on. It’s much better to have someone pestering you about your Visa card payment than to not have groceries on the table. When those people are calling and getting you all upset and emotional your reaction is to pay them something, anything to get them to shut up. Your budget steadies you, guides you to keep going the right direction when the storm is blowing you off course.

Now let’s look at what’s left of your income. Where is it…there’s not much left is there? You’ve given to satisfy your soul. You’ve saved to prepare yourself and your family for the future. You have paid for the necessities of life. Now you’ve got to work on the debts.

What you are going to do to pay off your debts is called a debt snowball. It is a proven way to work through your debts in a way that allows you to see that you are making progress and it reinforces your decision to get out of debt. It’s important that you see progress. If you don’t see signs of progress it is easy to get discouraged. If you get discouraged it is going to be more likely that you aren’t going to stick to your budget. If you don’t stick to your budget you are going to pay out your hard earned money in ways that don’t benefit you the most.

When you make a snow ball and you roll it down a hill what happens? The ball get’s bigger and bigger and gains momentum. Soon the ball is huge and you are at the bottom of the hill. That’s what we want to do with your debt. Start small and finish big. List your debts in order of size from the smallest debt to the largest debt. You might have credit card debt…if you are normal you might have several credit cards with balances. List them smallest balance to largest. You might have a student loan. It could be you borrowed some money from a family member. You may have a home equity line of credit. List them all.

I sat down with one lady who was afraid she was going to be foreclosed on asked her how much debt she had. In the beginning she told me she only had two debts outstanding other than her house she hadn’t paid on in nine months. As we started listing the debts the list grew and grew. Before we were done she had NINE debts she owed…plus the house she hadn’t paid on in nine months. This is not a time to fool yourself! List them all. Small debts, large debts, official debts with lots of interest and small debts with no interest at all. You borrowed all the money and now it is time to pay the piper!

So you’ve got your debts listed smallest to largest. Now look at the minimum payments on each. That’s what you are going to pay on each one of them…except for the smallest. Whatever extra you can scrape together you are going to pay towards the smallest debt. The next month you are going to do the same thing. Pay minimums on all the debts…except for the smallest. Whatever extra you can scrape together you are going to pay towards the smallest debt. The next month you are going to do the same thing. Pay minimums on all the debts…except for the smallest. Whatever extra you can scrape together you are going to pay towards the smallest debt.

Soon the smallest debt will be paid off. Then you will have freed up the minimum payment that you were making on the smallest debt. Add that to the next smallest debt plus whatever else you can scrape together and apply it towards your next smallest debt. What are you going to do next month? You are going to pay minimums on all the debts…except for the smallest. Whatever extra you can scrape together you are going to pay towards the smallest debt.

I hope you are getting the idea. Let’s make a pretty chart for the book so you can see how that might look. Notice we haven’t listed the debts in order of interest rate. We have not listed them in order of minimum payment. We simply listed them smallest to largest.

Now let's see what happens...

Take a look at month four and five. On month five the last payment was made to the parents for the $150 loan. That loan is gone. You have a victory. You have now gone from eight debts to seven! Moreover you relationship with your parents is probably improved because you have paid them back. Now look at month number five. All that was added to the payment on the gas card was the minimum payment to the parents. Paying off the parents allows you to make a larger payment to the next debt. Let’s take a look and see where our balances are now on our smaller loans.

If you notice our minimum payment on our loan to our parents was $10. Our minimum payment to the Gas card is $20. So from now on the minimum we will be paying on our Gas card will be….$30. We roll the minimum from the previous debt into the minimum of the next debt. Then we will add anything else we can scrape together. Notice in some months we were able to pay more than other months. That’s just reality. Month 2 our imaginary couple was able to pay $60! Month 3 was tighter and they were only able to pay $40. Don’t worry about it!

You now have a plan. You have a budget. You have priorities and you are on your way to building a secure financial base for your relationships. How will the kids react when they realize the credit card companies aren’t calling anymore? How will your neighbors react when the debt collection agencies quit calling them? How will your wife or husband react? Even if you aren’t behind there is going to be reason to rejoice...and you will have moved the needle.

Finances Pt 3: R We Counter Cultural?

2008-04-21T20:32:00.004-04:00

So if our first priority is in giving the first ten percent what is the second priority?

“If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”--1 Timothy 5:8
“The good leave an inheritance to their children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.”-- Proverbs 13:22

“The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave of the lender.”-- Proverbs 22:7

Well I guess that spells it out! If you don’t provide for your family then you are worse than an unbeliever. Furthermore you need to provide for your grandchildren. Furthermore if you think you can get there by borrowing you are going to make a slave out of yourself.

So what does it mean to provide for your family, your grandchildren, or to be a slave? In my opinion it means different things for different people. For an entrepreneur it might mean leaving a business for future generations to grow. For a teacher it may mean making sure your kids and grandkids get an education that will lead them to nice careers. For some it could mean teaching their progeny about stocks and bonds. For some it could simply be putting what food on the table you can and keeping alive a hope that tomorrow can be better.

Providing for our Children’s children is a truly Christian outlook towards money and a largely foreign concept for most of us. I don’t remember hearing the verse about leaving your grandchildren an inheritance until the last couple of years. I grew up in church and went to seminary AND didn’t hear or read (or at least it didn’t register) that verse till I was in my mid-thirties? Why?!!

In my opinion the church as a whole has let us down on the financial front. As Christians we should teach each other sound financial concepts, live those concepts, and reap the rewards of those concepts. What I mean by that last comment is not that we should all be rich nor did I mean to espouse some sort of prosperity theology where God’s favored have more money. What I meant was that sound finances give us a foundation for better relationships.

Do you think the divorce rate among Christians would be the same as the divorce rate among non-Christians if more of us lived in financial security? Do you think individual churches might have more financial resources to carry out mission work? Could we fund Christian schools to take, not our children out of public schools, but disadvantaged children out of public schools who need extra time and attention? What kind of impact could we make on the church’s relationship with the world if we had our financial act together?

“The good leave an inheritance to their children's children.” The contrast of that concept with our culture is stark to say the least. Leviticus and 1 Chronicles say that we are “sojourners” in the land. This place doesn’t belong to us. Neither the earth, nor the culture do we own. We are to be in a word from the hippy days of the 1960’s “counter cultural.” Well isn’t living a financially responsible life counter cultural? …now back to our story. It doesn’t say provide for yourself, or provide for your family. It says leave an inheritance for your grandchildren. The thing is those verses don’t necessarily give us the details on how to do it. There are fortunately other verses that do speak to the subject.

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?—Luke 14:28

“In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.”—Proverbs 21:20

These two verses tell us we have to; first, see if we have enough money to spend for what we want to buy, and second, to live on less than we make. What does counting the cost mean? It means a budget you dummy. Oh gee that’s no fun is it?

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."—Matthew 11:30

It’s actually not that bad. A budget is a yoke that guides us. It will help us pay off our debts and save for the future. It is a tool not a master. If we use a tool like this we will truly be counter cultural in this materialistic society we live in.

Finances Pt 2: The Freedom To Give

2008-04-20T21:03:00.004-04:00

But is giving to others our first priority? Where do we start? What is most important? I want to provide a useful framework for thinking about finances. I want to give you options about how to plan your finances. I want to give you tools that will put your finances right where they ought to be…in the background. Relationships are what is really important not money. However, can we really give our best to relationships if we have underlying concerns about a secure financial future?

Where do we start? How about with the first ten percent? “Hey,” you say, “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. Is giving ten percent to a church really the smartest thing I should do.” My answer is…well I don’t know, but it’s a place to start. If you are under the pretense that your faith is the most important thing in your life starting with the 10% only makes sense. I believe I heard it from talk show host Dave Ramsey that “if you can’t live on 90% then you can’t live on 100%!” If you aren’t being responsible enough to kick out 10% of your spending you are doing something wrong (or maybe you don’t have any income at all—in which case 10% of nothing is well…nothing).

Let me share with you something about giving that ten percent that most pastors won’t like and a lot of people won’t agree with. The 10% goes to the church right? Does it have to be the local church? The church isn’t just the building down the road where your name is on the role. The Church is the worldwide family of God. Now I do think we need to support the local church, but can’t we support other things we feel strongly about as well?

I’ve got a friend who is a Catholic priest and he encourages the members of his congregation to give 10%. 5% to his local parish and the other 5% to charity (I think he mainly means Catholic Charities, but I’m stretching his advice to cover a lot of other things here). Let me give you an example. My wife is from Romania.

On a trip back to visit her family we went to the small village that her father was from. On our way to her grandmother’s house and the local church, which was just next door, we passed people on foot, horse drawn buggies, and a few really, really old Romanian cars. The church was literally falling apart. It was made at least in part with mud bricks…which were disintegrating. The floor was horribly uneven. The back part of the church which wasn’t used anymore had a hole in the roof you could throw a basketball through.

Luckily, the congregation was well on the way to building a new facility. They had been working on it for several years and the walls and roof were in place. The inside of the structure still had a lot of work to be done. There’s one note of explanation I should give you here. Europeans quite often don’t finance homes or buildings. They build with what money they have and then wait till they have more. It can take a decade to build a home. The upside is that when it is built, they are not straddled with mortgage payments for the next 20 years.

So this church was being built and one of the local Baptist Association officials had come over to America several times to raise funds. Several churches had made pledges…and never delivered! Don’t ya want to just find the people who go to a church like that and smack ‘em?! Telling these Romanians from a little village where a lot of them don’t have cars, paved roads, or even plumbing that they will help them build a church…and then not sending the dough!!

Soooo…my wife and I took our 5% and sent them the money for about a year. We had some money saved up when we were there on our first trip. We gave it to this aforementioned Baptist official (who happens to be Marta’s uncle) and he just about stroked out. Over the course of the year they were pretty much able to finish the church and when they did they sent us a picture of the inside of the church with a packed house.

Sometimes, giving to your local church doesn’t inspire a person like giving to something else. Paying for the lights and new carpet and the pastor’s salary isn’t sexy. Giving that five percent to the church in Romania actually kind of kept us on track for giving the other five percent to our local church. I really think it’s important to support your local church. Any organization we can be part of has dues. A bicycle club, Civitan, Optimist Club, Toastmasters; they all have dues to be paid. A church is pretty much the only thing going that you can be a part of week after week and never fork over a dime. Unfortunately, the reality is most people don’t.

At most churches the bulk of the giving is done by the older members. Why? Their houses are paid for, their kids are out of school, and their retirement fund is full so now they are supporting your cheap ass. Why don’t you start giving so those old folks can go on a vacation or something?

(The front of the old church is the only part remaining at this point. The rear of the church was torn down as a house was being built behind it. The new church will stand many years of the harsh Romanian winters while keeping the members warm!)

Finances Pt 1: Do Finances Impact Relationships?

2008-04-20T20:58:00.005-04:00

Chapter Two:
We’ve all been told forever that financial problems are the number one reason of divorce. In this politically correct day and age we say “the number one cause of relational discord.” Some people don’t ever get married so it can’t be the number one cause of divorce for them. Regardless if someone is married, has a “civil union,” or is just dating, financial problems can cast a cloud of unnecessary stress on a relationship…or can it?

I set out to see if there was any real research behind this generally held assumption. I scoured the internet exhaustively and after fifteen minutes or so found a true academic study that examined the problem. “Financial Problems as Predictors of Divorce: A Social Exchange Perspective” is the title of the study. It was written by Jan Anderson of California State University. Wow. It had been so long since I had read a truly academic paper I was bored before the fourth page and I was actually interested in her topic! The way academics write is great for sleeping material.

There were sections on the theoretical framework, on what “social exchange” means, variable creation, and stuff even more exciting than that. Oh it makes my heart go pitter pat even just thinking of it. All the analysis, the academic rigor the, the, the…the results were not what I thought

Ms. Anderson actually found that there is no really great correlation between finances and divorce. “…financial problems explained less than 5% of the variability in divorce.” Who would have thunk? She goes on to say “Over 80% of the point-biserial and phi correlation coefficients were less than .10.” That is to say…actually I don’t know what that means, but it wasn’t looking good for our little bit of conventional wisdom.

Then the honesty. Academic researchers quite often obfuscate their research with arcane terminology. However, sometimes they also admit to the limits of their research. Just before the end of the paper Ms. Anderson comes clean as she writes, that, “a major limitation of this study was too few financial questions.” Then she goes further to say that a better study would incorporate more “traditional” financial problems such as “credit use, debt, bankruptcy, etc.”. Well duh!!

So her research proved that financial problems apart from “credit use, debt, and bankruptcy, etc” do not lead to relational problems! Wow! What other kinds of financial problems are people having…too much money? So my search to disprove conventional wisdom came to an end. Jan Andersen’s research aside I think we have to conclude that financial stress can eat away at a relationship.

It really doesn’t matter what time of day it is financial stress is still there. It doesn’t matter if you are standing, sitting, or lying down financial stress is still there. If you are at work, at home, in the car, or in the gym…financial stress is still there. It puts people on edge. It affects sleep, moods, and in general the emotional reserves of everyone in the household. The bottom line is that regardless of whether it is the number one cause of relational discord or the number four cause, it is a cause of relational problems.

In my opinion it is also a deeply spiritual problem. When my wife and I were members of First Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN one of the things the pastor used to say is that the church budget was the most important theological statement put out by the church. Wow! Of course that was just his opinion. I am a Baptist and he’s not the Pope so anyone can have a contrary opinion. The point is this, finances have important spiritual ramifications.

Can you love God with all your heart, soul, and might if you are worried about the car being repossessed? Can you feel close to God when you have to worry about how to make the next house payment? I have a friend who has been through a tough patch right now financially. He says it has actually has helped him spiritually. He knows now that there are more important things in life than money. He says he and his wife have had to rely on God and each other to make it through emotionally and spiritually. It’s not really the finances that are eating up the marriage, “it’s the little things.” I wanted to smack him upside the head! If his finances were in order the “little things” would be just that: “little things!” Has financial hardship been good for him spiritually? I don’t really see how.

There is a strain on his marriage. There is a weight on his shoulders that he feels everyday. He does bring it to God in prayer, but the collection agencies have not stopped calling. What if his prayer is never answered and he never gets a better job? What if he lives the rest of his life not even from paycheck to paycheck, but in debt that he can’t pay back? Isn’t it a possibility this financial strain could turn him a bit more cynical? Could the unanswered prayer be a sign to him that God is not there for him?

The self righteous out there are thinking, “oh, if he was a REAL Christian then no amount of stress and strain would shake his faith in our Lord…” To which I answer, “Who talks like that? If you do then please shut your self-righteous pie hole and go back to “la la land.” I’m talking about real people with real problems, and it can affect their relationship with God. Money has spiritual implications.

Money and spirituality are NOT linked in the sense that those with a greater amount of faith have a greater amount of money. That’s just silly prosperity theology preached by televangelists and hacks. They are related partially in the sense that how we make and spend out money is a reflection of our values. Financial advisors will tell you over and over that people spend what they make. They see couples making $25,000 a year who have two kids and have a tough time. No money ever saved. They also see a childless couple making $120,000 a year have a tough time. No money ever saved.

Have you ever had enough money left over to help someone out? I’m not necessarily talking about the guy on the street who is asking for help. What about a relative, friend, or stranger you have heard that is having a tough time? We’ve all been warned about lending to relatives and friends, but I’m not talking about a loan. I’m talking about having money left over to GIVE to someone in need. Have you ever had a passion to give to an organization that helps others? Having your finances in order will allow that to happen.