LICENSE TO PRETEND

Awakened from a night of tossing and turning, my soul had been deprived of peace. I had forgotten what prosperity was.1 Barely had I opened an eyelid and there he sat waiting to reinforce his negative thoughts and schemes. Like a fool I listened and even repeated his hocus-pocus. "How am I going to pay for this?" I'll never get out of debt! Maybe this job is where I belong." My thoughts were that of this spiritual outlaw. I lay there wide awake, a victim of an empty spirit with symptoms of stress and depression consuming my thoughts day and night. The echoing sounds of this nightmare were loud and clear, leaving me with feelings of restlessness, worry and anxiety. I was at the place were Job was identifying with his pain. The very thing I was trying to protect myself from, the thing I feared the most, was coming to pass.1 The spirit of debt had seduced me into financial bondage and captivity. I was an indentured servant forced to work many years of servitude in a job I did not like in order to repay low interest rate credit cards and unsecured checks that came through my mail slot screaming to be used. Initially there was no cost associated with these cards that appeared to help me escape financial jams. Like an addict hooked on drugs, I continued signing my name on the dotted line enticed by the temporary cash advance fix. Month in and month out I was making the minimum payments. However, my balances never seemed to decrease. Sure I was late once in a while, but did they have to add on a twenty five dollar late fee which now placed me over the limit with yet another fee for being over the limit?!

The thought of not knowing if I was paying for the vacations I enjoyed, the groceries I had eaten or the clothes I was wearing had become one screaming total of numbers on various monthly statements. Trapping me in a maze of past due and final notices haunting my every move. Demanding immediate attention refusing to be delayed one more time.

I never realized the interest rate increased from the low introductory offer of six percent to a whopping twenty percent. Consumed only with thoughts of how to repay for something I had purchased twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six or forty-eight months prior. At this juncture in my life all I wanted was peace of mind, but with bill collectors calling day and night that was impossible. Without any money to make good on my debts I had no peace. Peace and joy do not come by the avenue of a company advancing you money on a paycheck that has not been earned. Thank God I had enough sense to know that. Yet I still made unwise decisions.

Speaking from experience, when I did not have financial prosperity I did not have peace. Peace was not waiting in an unemployment line, collecting severance and having no health insurance. Been there, done that! I don't remember peace stopping by to comfort me. I know some people are probably reading this and saying money can't buy your peace of mind. When I did not have money to meet my needs I didn't have peace. I still felt nervousness, worry and concern about how I was going to pay my mortgage, utilities, and car note. Figuratively speaking the word peace sounds really good because that type of peace is nothing more than an inconceivable utopia of words. The reality of life is cash, credit or check. I am aware that money is the lowest form of prosperity; it is not prosperity itself. Money cannot buy anyone prosperity of the mind, spirit or body. It helps but it doesn't guarantee a good life.

Sometimes the wealthiest people in the world are in more misery and pain. When I read about some of these famous people who pursue the alleged good life. The only accomplishment they obtained was to die young from drugs and alcohol and cause heartache to their family. I know they did not have peace or true prosperity. They are not prospering; they are simply suffering from soulish symptoms of a depleted spirit. Because when your mind does not prosper, you have no peace. The beatitudes of life (peace, joy, love and happiness) were slowly sinking into a quicksand of disappointment. With an undernourished spirit susceptible to the adversities of life, my attitude gave this spiritual outlaw permission to set up shop and dwell in the center of my soul. He had a foothold in my life because his attitude, opinions and thoughts were playing with my head and I was in agreement. My mind, will and emotions that make up the soul were being invaded with doubtful, logical questions of "what if this doesn't work" instead of "when this does work."

I was crying words of pity, allowing my emotions to dictate to me and dwelling on what was going wrong instead of acknowledging what was going right. My attitude was the librarian of my past failures, referencing the mistakes of my present and trying to prophesize my future outcome on obsolete information, showing me past and present pictures of defeat. Somehow my faith would have to transform my attitude from losing to winning. But how do you change your circumstances when you can't see past them?

Hoping and wishing that God would hear and help me only dissolved into pathetic crying sessions of begging instead of praying. Romans 5:5 was not working in my life -- the hope that does not disappoint us -- because hope normally let me down and dissolved into disappointment. Lured into an arena of fear, my mind was not equipped for the storm that would eventually drift me out to sea. I had nothing to hold on to in my hour of crisis; my soul was anchored to weakened, watered down words of hope.