What a Difference a Day Makes

I wasn’t prepared. I’d assured myself we could handle our financial obligations, believing we had plenty of time to pay down our credit cards and pay off the house. After all, we were only in our fifties.

Then my husband died while getting ready for work. I had to sell the house at a huge loss and pay the difference out of his life insurance settlement. I had to pay his final expenses. We had two car loans, three credit cards, and hardly any savings. The financial quicksand swallowed me.

What a difference a day makes.

Debt has become a way of life for many today. We pay for wants, telling ourselves they are needs. So we whip out the card and close our eyes as the merchant swipes it, or sign on the dotted line while telling ourselves we can tighten our belts and pay off the debt… eventually.

And yet there is one debt we can never repay — our soul’s. Thankfully, we don’t have to. Our credit rating is outstanding with God because of His Son. His bank of mercies never runs out.

However, we don’t know how much time we have before the trumpet sounds on that final day or when our life on this earth ends. Are we prepared? Or are we putting it off, assuming we have plenty of time to ask God for mercy?

What a difference a day can make.

Holy Father, thank you that your Son, my Lord, has fully paid the debt I could never repay. Help me to realize that both what I need on earth and what I have waiting for me in heaven come by your grace alone, so that I cease getting in trouble by trying to get it on my own. Teach me to be frugal in material things and lavish in things eternal. Amen.

Go Deeper — If you are deep in debt financially, seek sound godly wisdom to help you slowly and methodically get out of that trap. But it is even more important to free yourself from your spiritual debt by acknowledging God’s gift of forgiveness for all your sins through confession.