No Shortcuts
Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5 NLT
I came across a quote today by A.W. Tozer, "God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves." If you're not where you'd like to be in life, there's still time.
A key is found in Proverbs 21:5. Good planning and hard work versus bad planning and laziness.
As an example let's consider a simplified version of the debt free journey that I started in 2020 to eliminate nearly $50K in debt. The decisions that led to the accumulation of this debt was the fault of my wife and I alone. We did not have a major financial crisis that came out of no where (i.e. major medical bill). Ours was a slow and steady climb of spending more money than we made which led to credit card, IRS, 401K, and some medical debt. It took the death of my mom to open my eyes to the foolishness of our way of living, which resulted in me committing to get out of debt.
What was the difference? The difference was good planning (budget) and hard work (mostly following YNAB’s 4 rules). First step was to write out a list of all my debts to determine the exact amount owed. Prior to this I would always avoid knowing the real number so I could pretend it wasn't real in my mind. Next was establishing a budget by writing a list of all my fixed and flexible monthly expenses; and committed to using YNAB to manage my budget. I then looked at the remaining monthly funds to decide how much could be put towards debt. Once I had this number I put together a plan to paydown the debt, and started by utilizing the debt snowball method. 22 months later I was able to get the debt paid off.
In what ways has Proverbs 21:5 proven true in your own life?