Politics & Religion

It’s often said that the two things not to bring up at a large family event are politics & religion. The same goes for Facebook and social media lately as I’ve seen multiple “fights” break out as a result of politically related discussions.

I get it, these issues, for many people, are very personal. They are often cornerstones of belief that they have been past down from generation to generation. They can also be very complicated subjects with lots of “facts” on all sides of the issue. As a result, some people feel that these issues should remain “private” and should not be discussed.

If that’s someones view and they choose not to engage in discussion on the matter, that’s certainly their prerogative, but for me, it’s something much different.

Faith first, is the foundation of who I am. My belief in God, Jesus, and the Bible guides my decisions in life. I don’t always hold true to it as a I should and I often stumble in the walk, but it is the place I go back to for direction. It’s changed my life, it’s changed who I am, for the better — not perfect, far from it, but better and I want to share that with others.

Politics is a little different. It’s like a sport to me. While the ideals are very important to me, they are not the same as faith. I enjoy the intellectual challenges that come with policy debates, history, and charting a course for the future. I’m happy to have these discussions with people of all sides of the aisle. That’s why my brother in-law and I recently started a blog called Sometimes left, always right (arrogant, I know). We both enjoy the debate, the spectacle, and the process of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I believe what I believe strongly (as does he) and I think these things are important — BUT I’m not going to let it wreck my day.

Come November, either Obama or Romney will be elected President and the wailing from the opposite side will commence. Let’s step back, take a deep breath and realize that while these things are import and they can ultimately affect our lives, we only have so much control over them.

It is all worth discussion, it’s worth researching, and worth debating — but it’s not worth getting all upset about.

[Lord,] She is a flower, You are the rain
She gets more beautiful with every passing day
She is my flower and You are the sun
She gets more beautiful because of how You love

TobyMac

Mountains & Valleys

Life can be so full of challenges and victories — valleys and mountains. When in the valley, it’s easy to be discouraged and think the mountain top is so far away. Equally as bad, when you’re on the mountain top it’s easy to be so scared about the valleys ahead, that you forget to enjoy the high.

I’m guilty of both, but I’m learning this… when on the mountain tops, take time to breath in the clear air, refresh, strengthen, and be thankful — know that there may be valleys ahead, but don’t be fearful of them.

When in the valleys, remember to look up and see the mountain top ahead. Even when it’s far away, keep moving toward it, one step at a time. Don’t wallow in the disappear. Be reminded:

Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil, for God is with you. (Psalm 23:4)

Learn from the mountains and the valleys. They are each uniquely apart of our brief journey on this earth and both have value.

The Death of Debt

Debt is a monkey (or boulder) on the back of many American families and our country as a whole. Money is one of the top reasons couples fight and ultimately divorce. I don’t know about you, but I want to kill anything that could be a top reason to create division in my marriage. For that reason, and many others, we decided to fight debt to the death in our family.

If we really want to be free, as a country and as individual families, we’ve got to kill the debt.

The Bible says it best:

“…the borrower is the slave of the lender.” – Proverbs 22:7b

How true is that?

Almost 3 years ago, my wife and I decided to make getting out of debt a top priority. At the time, I had some student loans, we had racked up credit card debt, had a mortgage with a high interest rate, two car loans, and little to nothing in savings. I was making more money than I had ever made, but we were still headed in the wrong direction. The debt and spending were out of control. For the future of our family, something had to change.

We talked about it and agreed we needed to start walking the walk. It’s hard to point the finger at the Federal government’s budget when I was barely balancing my own at the time. I knew what to do, I just wasn’t doing it.

To help catapult us in the right direction, we took a Crown Financial class at a local church but ultimately ended up following Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps and a combination of other techniques & tools.

We took steps to drop spending wherever it was possible, especially recurring expenses like Satellite TV and eating out. We used the free (and great) mint.com to track our spending. We setup an initial emergency fund by making savings AUTOMATIC.

Setting up an automatic transfer each week out of your checking account and into the savings account (even a small amount) can ad up huge overtime. Don’t let your self decide if you want to put that money in savings that week, make it automatic. This was a huge thing I learned from the Automatic Millionaire.

We’re still working our way through Dave’s steps, but as of this month, we’ve paid off all debt with the exception of the mortgage (which we also got refinanced to a lower rate). We’re now working on growing savings a little more before investing more heavily in our retirement plan.

The freedom from marching away from debt is an incredible one. It takes time, sometimes a lot of it, but if you have a plan and stick to it, it will change your life.

Or goal, Lord willing, is to have our mortgage paid off before the kids graduate from high school.

Start with step 1, save a little weekly to get at least $1000 in an emergency fund. Then start the debt snowball, along with a detailed budget, and you’ll be surprised how fast it all starts to fade away.

You can do it!