When Great Men Fall

In our family devotional, we recently came to the uncomfortable account of David and Bathsheba. No problem, I thought, we can handle this. My littles will tell you without missing a beat that God’s ideal for marriage is, “one man and one woman for life.” Teaching them that David broke this ideal would be fairly straightforward. So I thought.

It turns out that I underestimated how difficult this passage would be to explain to our children. Not because it involves teaching preschoolers about adultery, but because it opened their eyes to a terrible truth.

You see, David is Monkey2’s Bible hero. He gets his middle name from three great Davids – David Richardson (Joshua’s father), David Motl (who is like a second father to me), and King David. For several weeks now, JD has listened intently as we read through accounts of David’s faith and victories. What little boy isn’t inspired by the young shepherd who conquered a giant with just a sling and the strength of his God? My second monkey has been awestruck and deeply impressed, proudly proclaiming each night, “His name is David, just like ME!”

When we came to the passage where David takes another man’s wife, our young children listened with rapt attention. It wasn’t difficult to explain what happened. They understood that a covenant had just been broken. Well, that was easy, I thought to myself. I wasn’t prepared for the question that followed.

“Is that the same David who killed Goliath?”

JD’s face fell.

It couldn’t be. Not David. Not his hero.

I watched as it dawned on my little boy that even great men fall. I wanted to weep. In that moment, King David’s sin with Bathsheba broke my heart because I saw the effect it had on my son. It baffled and confused him. It distressed him that David – his great hero of faith – could make such a sinful choice.

Do you know what that’s like? Have you ever watched a spiritual hero fall from their pedestal? I have. I’m sure you have, too. You’ve seen great preachers fall into error, giants of faith fall away. You’ve heard reports of men and women you regarded as blameless who have fallen into sexual sin.

“No, surely not so-and-so. Please don’t let it be true.”

It hurts. It’s discouraging. It’s infuriating. When someone you’ve held up as an example of righteous living makes a sinful decision, it can make you question your own faith and commitment to Jesus. In times like these we need to remember that we’re not the only ones watching. Our kids are listening, waiting to hear our reaction.

There are two things I was reminded of during our discussion with JD. One: Sin has consequences beyond our imagination. Scandals (especially in the Church) reach further than we can possibly see. Even centuries later, David’s sin is still painful. It still affects the hearts and minds of thousands of people. In light of that, we need to understand the seriousness of our own choices. Every one of us is setting an example for someone else in our lives. We may not be in a public role like David, but people are still looking to us. Our actions are either leading them toward God or away from Him. The ripple effect can last for years.

Second: Jesus. Precious Jesus. I think for the first time it really hit JD that Jesus is the only one without sin. Isn’t that exactly what we want our children to understand? That’s the hope on which to focus. What an opportunity to remind our children that, although no one is perfect, Jesus offers cleansing for all. When David was repentant, God was able to restore a beautiful relationship with him. He offers the same to each of us.

When someone sins, do you obsess about it for days? “I can’t BELIEVE he did that!” “What’s wrong with them, anyway?” “I’m never going to trust her again!” Or do you display grace and pray for repentance? Christ is able to redeem! Drive that point home, every time.

With sorrow I watched JD realize David’s imperfection. But, oh, the joy of pointing him to God’s forgiveness! That is truly the best part of parenting; getting to share the love, grace, and mercy of God with my children. Watching JD slowly transfer his greatest admiration from men to Christ is unspeakably sweet.

Just as Joshua spent the rest of devotional teaching our children, we know that everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). There is no one who is righteous on their own (Romans 3:10). And sometimes, great men fall.

I want my kids to admire the characters of the Bible as well as modern day leaders of faith, but I want them to realize that they are just human – just like us. I want them to think of Paul and Peter, Daniel and Ruth (and Jody and Evelyn Apple) as people to imitate, but I want them to know that they were (are) real people in real need of a Savior, and that our greatest hero is Jesus.

When great men fall, Jesus stands. He is ready to forgive and receive even the lowest among us. He is willing to be the strength that you lack, if only you’ll let Him.

Will you let Christ be your Hero?

Get Out of Debt: Pray. Buy Smart. Pay the Difference.

You may have heard the motto, “Buy used and save the difference.” It’s simple advice. Whenever possible, avoid buying brand new items and instead put the difference between the used and the retail price into the bank.

You need a lawn mower. Mid-range retail price is $300 for a push mower. You pick up a good used mower at a yard sale for $80. You have a difference of $220 in your pocket. Yay! Now, the hard part. Instead of using that extra money to splurge on 15 pounds of dark chocolate (What? Don’t judge me), you stick that chunk of change into your savings account.

Since we have a specific goal of paying off our loan early, we’ve tweaked this motto slightly to fit our situation: “Pray. Buy smart. Pay the difference.” As much as possible, everything we save by buying used or discounted will go toward our loan.

Our first opportunity to live by this motto came by mistake. When we did our final walk-through (the night before we were supposed to close on the house), we noticed one glaring problem: The washer and dryer were gone! The seller had agreed to include all appliances with the purchase of the house, and I was super excited about the high capacity washer in the laundry room. We’d been using a compact set in our rental and I was always behind on laundry (especially during puking marathons… *shudder*). So the prospect of a giant machine that could actually wash a whole laundry hamper’s worth of clothes was thrilling.

Alas, no one knew where the promised set had disappeared to, so the seller agreed to give us money to buy another. Our realtor and the seller did some quick research and found that the cost of a brand new, comparable set would cost roughly $1600. At closing the next morning, the seller cut us a check for that amount.

As we gazed over a sea of shiny washing machines in the middle of Menards it was oh, so tempting to fork over that entire sum for the benefit of having a brand new set.

“The seller is paying for it,” we reasoned.

“We’ll probably never have a chance to buy a brand new, matching set again.”

“Plus, we’re supposed to be moving in next week. We don’t have time to scour Craigslist for a used machine. We need one right away.”

“These are guaranteed to last for years.”

And the justifying went on and on until we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Who were we kidding?! There was no way we were spending $1600 on a washer and dryer set! Not when there were other options. It was nice to dream for two seconds, though.

The sellers had made it clear that they didn’t care whether we spent the whole thing on a set from Menards, or used only part of it to buy a used set. They just wanted to give us enough to cover a washer and dryer comparable to the ones that had been in the purchase agreement. Very nice of them.

We decided to buy used and put the difference back into the loan.

In the midst of the craziness of trying to move in the middle of a blizzard (welcome to April in Wisconsin), Joshua working extra hours with the bus, and settling a family of 7 into a new home, we began our search… on Craigslist. I didn’t find a whole lot. Discouraged, overwhelmed, and more than a tad stressed, we began to pray that God would give us wisdom and what He knew to be best.

Finally I came across an ad for a used appliance store advertising refurbished high capacity washers. We headed over there and found a gorgeous Samsung Smart Care 4.5 cu ft washer. From my research, it was exactly the machine I had been hoping to buy. Unfortunately, it had “SOLD” plastered on it. The sales lady offered to call a sister store in Minneapolis to see if they happened to have another one. When she got off the phone she said, “Great news! This one was actually being held for a woman who never picked it up. The lady never paid and it’s been here over the “holding time,” so it is available if you want it. In fact, it’s been here so long, I’ll give you 20% off.” The listed price was $400. With the discount she was offering, the sale price came down to $320. Oh, yeah!!

Even better, they had the matching dryer and she offered it for the same price. So, after taxes, we ended up paying a total of $686 for my dream washer and dryer set! Yes, they are used, but only barely. It was one of those things where the original buyer decided they didn’t like the set for whatever reason, so they returned it to the store. It was an outdated model, so the store sold it to this appliance place to clear it out of their showroom. The only thing wrong with the set is that the washer has a few small dings on the side.

What a blessing God gave us!

The Numbers:

Out of curiosity I looked up our machines to find the retail value. If we’d bought these slightly outdated models brand new the cost would have been….

Washer: $550

Dryer: $700

Difference between retail and used (before tax): $610

If we were just spending our own money and were going to “buy smart and pay the difference” we would pay $610 extra on our loan this month. Since we were given a check to buy a new set, we actually got to save more than that.

What we could have spent: $1600

What we actually spent: $686

Difference to add to first payment: $914

Fun Fact: I plugged the numbers into Payoff Track. If the only extra money we ever paid on our loan was that $914, we could pay off our mortgage five months early and reduce our total interest by whopping $2,690.57!

Brand new washer and dryer set for $1600? Or slightly used set for $686, knocking almost $2700 off our loan?

Now I can wash this whole pile of laundry at one time.

The only downside is that I no longer have a kid tall enough to move it all to the dryer.

Pray. Buy smart. Pay the difference.

Our Top 3 Reasons to Get Out of Debt

In my last post I talked about our goal of paying off our house in 7 years. That seems like a crazy, unrealistic idea to some people. To us it sounds hard, but not impossible. But why? Why do we so badly want to get out from under our loan? Here are our top 3 reasons for wanting to pay off our house as quickly as possible.

1.      Debt is serious

The Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to borrow money. It also doesn’t say that it’s a wonderfully awesome thing, either. Scripture does, however, give some pretty heavy warnings about where debt can lead and how to properly handle money owed. Proverbs 22:7 says that the borrower is slave to the lender. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of making myself a slave to anyone but God. Debt, in a very real way, enslaves you as you are bound to repay that money with compounding interest. This ties you up and has brought many people to more than just financial ruin. Psalm 37:21 says that the wicked borrow and do not repay, so we know that once we get into debt we are obligated to repay our loan. Along that note, Ecclesiastes 5:4 tells us that it is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it (such as getting into debt and then having to foreclose). God never says you cannot get into debt, but He does warn that it is a heavy burden and that, as Christians, we are obligated to repay our debts honestly. When we get in over our heads with debts too large to repay, we bring ourselves financial ruin and a poor name to the Body of Christ.

2.      Good stewardship means not wasting money

We should all be good stewards of our money. To us, that means not spending more than necessary so that we can put our finances to the best possible use. Instead of supporting a corporation with interest dollars, we’d rather put that extra money toward helping others adopt, supporting missionaries, and assisting people in crisis.

With interest, our $126,300 loan would explode into paying the bank $233,768.96 over the course of a 30 year term. That’s $98,768.96 more than we “bought” the house for. In other words, if we pay on schedule we will pay 73.16% more than what the house is currently worth. That’s quite a markup.

To put things in perspective I downloaded a free app called “Payoff Track” which allows you to customize the numbers and see how much you can save by making extra payments on your loan. You can even track multiple loans at once if you want.  

I inserted the data: A loan of $126,300 at an interest rate of 4.625% on a 30 year term, with the first payment being due June 1, 2018. Our monthly payment, as you can see from the screen shot below, is $649.36 (insurance and taxes brings our monthly house bill to $974.51).

Did you know that just by making double payments you can pay off your 30 year loan in about 10 years? That doesn’t quite meet our dream of a 7 year payoff, though, so we had to create some bigger goals. If I click on “Payments” in the blue box I can adjust each month’s payment by what we expect to actually pay on the loan. We are aiming to pay an extra $708.71 each month, which is simply what we worked into our budget to be able to afford. That’s our goal, of course, based on a “good month” and barring any national emergencies.

The app makes it easy to calculate extra payments. I clicked on “Batch” in the upper right hand corner and set it up to automatically add that extra money into the monthly payment. This brings our monthly batch payment on the principle and interest to $1358.07.

If I remember correctly, that brought our payoff date to somewhere around 9 years from now. Great! But still not good enough to meet our goal. We went in and added an extra $5,000 to every April payment. Where is that extra $5,000 coming from? Hopefully a chunk of it will come from our tax return and we’ll be able to make up the rest of it with savings along the way. Hopes and dreams. Not necessarily reality, but this is our Grownup Dream, remember? These are pretend numbers we’re playing with.

If I go back to the home screen and click on “Summary” in the blue box, I can get a quick rundown of how we’re doing, and our scheduled payoff date. We are hoping to put an extra $2,926.58 toward our first payment due in June (in the next post I’ll tell you how part of that money came about). In addition to that large first payment of $4,225.30, by making an extra payment of $708.71 each month, and theoretically being able to pay an extra $5,000 on top of that every April for the next 7 years, we can have our house paid off by April 1, 2025. Woohooo!!! See, that dream is not so unrealistic after all, right??! Yeah, yeah, I hear your eyes rolling. It’s a stretch, and we know we won’t be able to meet that goal every single month. But it doesn’t seem so very far out of reach after all.

Let’s take a closer look at that “Summary” page. If we really can reach our monthly and yearly goals, then we will have shortened our payoff date by 23 years. Right. Duh. Okay, but let’s look at the financial numbers. Under “Current Status” it tells me that we will have made $94,159.19 worth of extra payments. This means we will have made only 82 payments, shortening our loan by 278 payments. And here’s the kicker. We will have paid only $21,106.57 in interest, rather than the $107,468.96 we are scheduled to pay. That means, in the long run, our loan will cost a total of $147,406.57 instead of $233,768.96. That’s a savings of $86,362.39. What can YOU do with an extra eighty-six-thousand-three-hundred-sixty-two-dollars-and-thirty-nine-cents?

If we don’t have to pay that much more, isn’t it a waste to do so? For us, good stewardship means *if possible* putting that $86,362.39 into something far more meaningful than financially supporting a bank. Which brings us to our third and most exciting point.

3.      The sooner we get out of debt, the more we can help others

If we can get out of debt, we will have more resources to help more people. We are all responsible for helping others no matter what our personal finances look like, but if we do not owe a huge amount to the bank every month, we will have that much more to offer others in need. After receiving so much help from others, we’re pretty excited about paying it forward!

Secondly, we can get off support and thereby support more preachers. Don’t get me wrong, we are incredibly grateful to our supporters who make it possible to minister in Wisconsin. It’s thanks to them that Joshua only has to work a part-time secular job and is able to focus so much of his attention on preaching and evangelism. But we don’t feel like we should plan to rely on this support forever.

If we didn’t have to make a monthly house payment of $649.26 we would have an extra $7,792.32 a year. With the financial support we receive from the congregation Joshua preaches for, plus his job as a bus driver, we would not have to rely on outside support to continue preaching here.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with living on support from Christians in other areas. There are biblical examples of doing so (see such passages as Philippians 4:10-20). However, if we can work toward getting off support, the finances we currently receive will be freed up for our supporters to help other Christians. Missionaries and preachers in other areas can receive help from the Christians who currently support us, and the Gospel can be spread further. And that is a motivating reason to get out of debt.