Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them. Psalms 126:5-6 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.126.5-6.NIVUK These verses are often applied to reaching out to others, particularly to family members or close friends whose behaviour causes us distress. And there is a way in which it can be applied like this. But it has an even greater resonance if we consider what it means in context. You see, the Jews were under a system where their Babylonian overlords would send them to work in the fields, but would take the best of what they produced. This would be sent to their appointed governor, or even to the king's household in Babylon. The Jews left behind in Judah were poor, weakened, not governed by their own people and unable to fight back. We see in the Old Testament festivals outlined in Leviticus that harvests were times to be celebrated with great joy. And we understand this. Bringing in food that would sustain your family and could potentially be sold at a profit is definitely worth celebrating. But who would celebrate giving your wealth over to another? Who would celebrate bringing in a harvest that an occupying power would steal from you? There is a perfect example of this over a thousand years before this psalm was written, in the time of the judges, when the Midianites were oppressing Israel: The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. Judges 6:11 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/jdg.6.11.NIVUK Do you see it? Instead of celebrating a bountiful harvest, Gideon is sneaking around, threshing wheat by hand in a winepress to prevent it from being stolen! This is actually part of the curse which fell on the Jews because they were disobedient (Deuteronomy 28:33). History tells us that the circumstances in Judah after the exile were not much different (Nehemiah 9:37).
You can imagine why someone would plant their seeds with tears in their eyes. They would likely not see the fruit of their labour. But that was about to change. A governor was appointed from among their people - a Jewish governor - who refused to lord it over the people and eat the food allotted to him. He refused to tax the people the way his predecessors had done, for their own enrichment while impoverishing the people (Nehemiah 5:14-15). As a result, those poor people eeking out their living in the land would be able to keep more of the produce they worked for. Their labour was now fruitful. Many of us right now will be longing for fruitful labour. We long to be able to decide how to spend the profit from our hard work. But we can't. The money comes in and then it goes out again. We ought to have enough. We are bringing in enough, even after tax is deducted. But our money just never seems to stretch. Let me tell you something that will cause you to think twice about how you spend your money: God allows us to be in this situation to alert us that something is wrong (Haggai 1:5-6)! Does this jar you? Does it shock you? Of course, Coronavirus has had a huge impact on jobs. Very many people have had their income slashed as a result. In fact, I've even heard that most people using emergency food banks in our area are not the poor. They were already supported by the government. No, it's the rich! It's those who had a massive income in relation to other people, but the payments they are receiving through their companies or the government are not enough to meet their financial commitments and they can't afford to feed their families. But let me ask you a big question: how were your finances before Coronavirus? Were you spending too much? Do you know how much you were spending? Could you make it to the end of the month without worrying about putting food on the table? You see, there is one thing that prevents us from enjoying the fruit of our labours. There is one thing where we hand over a good sized chunk of what we earn and receive absolutely nothing in return. Do you know what it is? Interest repayments. The Bible is absolutely and uncomfortably clear on debt: The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. Proverbs 22:7 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/pro.22.7.NIVUK Do not be one who shakes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. Proverbs 22:26-27 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/pro.22.26-27.NIVUK In Biblical days, debt was something the poor used to tide them over until they next found day rate work. Charging interest to such people was seen as exploitation and banned (Leviticus 25:35-38). Once someone was in debt, they were in bondage to the lender and were advised to get out of it as soon as they could (Romans 13:8). In our day, debt is seen as a legitimate means of increasing our social standing, of moving up the property ladder, of purchasing high value items, even for paying necessities like education or healthcare. We have constructed a society where a vast number of people are effectively in thrall to money lenders, be they banks or other commercial bodies. To illustrate the scale of this, in 2019 the UK government owed a sum equivalent to almost 86% of all the money it produced. By the end of January 2020, personal debt (money owed by individuals, not the government or companies) in the UK stood at £1.7 billion. The USA is far worse. Personal debt in the land of the free reached $14.1 trillion in 2019. And this is despite the global financial crisis of 2008 being caused by giant US lending institutions being over-exposed to bad, high risk debt, much of it personal. We are addicted to debt. For many, it's simply how they survive. When you are slave to debt, true freedom is not a reality to you. It's a mirage - a dream that always seems beyond your grasp. In January 2004, my wife and I signed the papers on our first mortgage. My wife was a little tentative. Filipinos don't have as much access to mortgages, so they tend to stay with relatives until they can afford a house of their own outright. We read through the papers carefully until we came to the financial details of the loan. She saw one figure and stared at it in fright. We were signing up for a twenty-five year repayment mortgage. If we took twenty-five years to pay it off, we would end up paying the bank more than twice the value of the apartment. Consider that for a moment. By the time we'd have reached the end if the first 10-12 years of our mortgage repayment plan, the apartment would have been paid for in full. For the remaining time on the mortgage, we would effectively be paying the bank for the privilege of loaning us money - that is, for absolutely nothing.
And they actually charged us a separate fee for arranging the mortgage! We took one look at that repayment plan and instantly decided there was no way we were paying them that amount of money. We signed up for the mortgage, but changed provider as soon as possible to one that gave us a better deal and allowed us to pay it off early, and we both worked hard to make sure that we did. I don't want you reading this and thinking that we got a terrible deal, or that our lender was actually a loan shark. No, loan sharks, payday loans and even store credit, car loans and credit cards are actually often way worse! What we signed up for was a fairly standard mortgage, with actually quite a small interest rate. You see, that's how interest bearing loans work. You sign up for them and soon pay off the price of the thing you paid for. However, you've signed up for a contract which means that you continue to pay money to a company, which is basically profit for them, and you receive nothing in return. Even mobile phone contracts can work the same way. The more of these types of contracts we commit to, the less we get to enjoy the fruit of our labour because we find ourselves giving money away to companies and receiving nothing back in return. Friend, I have a test that I now use when I am tempted by credit (which, after my experience with that mortgage, is hardly ever): 1) Do I really need it now? Getting into debt for something you don't really need or could easily save up and pay for outright later is poor stewardship of resources. 2) Is there a better way of paying for it? This is often not the case in the UK, where property rents are sometimes more than double the cost of mortgage repayments. 3) Will it help me to gain money, or will it just cause me to lose money? Is it an investment? 4) Does the lender have a good reputation? After all, would you really want to subject yourself to someone with poor character to get something you need? 5) Can I comfortably afford the repayments without exposing my other assets to unnecessary risk? 6) Can I pay the debt early without it costing too much to do so? 7) Is it worth it? Is it worth the risk and the extra worry to get what I want now, or would it be better to save up and pay for it outright later? Maybe you read these words and you think I'm talking nonsense. Maybe you wonder why I can be against something that makes our economy so much money. I might be an idealist, but surely there's a better way to make money than costing someone sleepless nights, taking their joy, putting their belongings and reputation at risk, all for the sake of taking their money and giving nothing in return? These verses speak of the sheer unadulterated joy of bringing home the harvest and not having to give it to a foreign overlord, of being able to decide what you do with the increase in resources once your obligations to God and the poor (which they would have regardless) have been met. We lose that joy if we hand the sweat of our brow to someone and get nothing at all in return. Maybe it's time we re-assessed out debt commitments and even what we think about debt at all. Maybe it's time we set our sights on truly being free. If you have issues with debt, want to live debt free and live in the UK, please contact Christians Against Poverty for further advice.
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