Do you ever wonder why we end up in the messes we do? Have you ever said, "Why is this happening to me?" If so, read on!

Here is a word from the Lord. If you will heed it, you will find it will indeed be a blessing to you. The text comes from Jeremiah 3:21-25, 4:1.

A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel. For shame hath devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.

How many times we stray from the Word of the Lord to our undoing! Even as surely as we are safe from harm by abiding in the secret place of the Almighty, we are equally in danger when we fail to obey His Word.

We pervert the blessings of the Lord into a curse. We often fail to see God as the true source of our blessings. Instead, we see our jobs, our skills, or even our credit cards as the way to get the things we desire.

God Can Heal Our Backslidings
One of the worst things you could do is to use credit cards to go ahead of God to buy the things you desire instead of waiting for God to bless you with them.

How much better would it be to wait on God to see if and when He would choose to furnish us with what we want? How easily we forget all the times the Lord has freely given gifts to us by His love, with no debt attached, just because we asked Him for them.

But God, the ever Loving One, says, "Return unto me and I will heal your backslidings." He doesn't say He will just forgive them, but that He will heal the whole mess. He will pardon our rebellious acts and apostasies. I believe if we ask the Lord our God, He will even take away our desire to stray from Him.

How our heart melts when we hear the voice of the Lord entreating us: "Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the Lord our God." As it is written, truly it is in vain to hope for our salvation to come from the hills or from the multitude of mountains.

That can be our job, money in the bank, our investments, and even a multitude of credit cards. Indeed, every cent we can put our hands on can be gone in a moment of time. Look at the crash of Wall Street in 1929. Millions of people lost their entire life savings overnight, and the banks locked their doors, refusing to give people their money.

Why do we think it couldn't happen now?

Do You Trust In God's System, Or The World's?
Let me put this on a more personal note—if today you lost every cent you have to your name, where would you turn? If you're broke, the bank is not your friend.

If the credit cards are all charged up, there's no more money coming from them either. Yes, truly your trust in the world's system will come to nothing one day. You will find your hopes and dreams shattered if your trust is in the world.

Can your bank account save you? Of course not. You wouldn't look to the bank or your savings or your credit cards to give you eternal life, so why are you looking to them to deliver you from anything else? Indeed, everything we have need of comes from the Lord. Why bother looking anywhere else?

Yet we allow ourselves to be so easily deceived! When the Lord reminds us that He is our God, we're OK for a short while. We look to Him for our needs. That is, until we see something that we simply must have, and then without so much as asking God should we do this, we borrow on a credit card to buy it.

So much for trusting God for our needs, right? Wouldn't it be so much better to go before the Lord and say, "Lord, I'd like to have such and such, may I have it?" Then, wait on the answer.

Where we mess up is getting ahead of God, and winding up in serious debt. Often we grow up in homes where our parents have been in debt all their lives, and that's all they know. You know the old saying, "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go!"

A job loss can create a devastating scenario when you're in debt. Just losing the job is bad enough, but when you owe for what you already have consumed, it's doubly worse. And it brings shame on you when you can't pay.

A Debt Mindset
Often, families stay in debt from generation to generation, and though everyone works hard, it seems their money just goes into pockets that have holes. God has another way. He wants us to be HOLY—and I don't mean for our bucket to be "holey." God's will is that we be the lender, not the borrower.

Let me tell you a powerful story about getting out of the will of God. In 2 Samuel 12, after King David had seen Bathsheba and lusted after her and took her unto himself, and had Uriah killed, Nathan the Prophet came to David with a word from the Lord.

Let's pick it up in verse 8: "And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things."

By doing this thing, King David had broken four of God's commandments:

1. Thou shalt not kill.
2. Thou shalt not steal.
3. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

David insisted upon doing things his way, even though he knew it was wrong, just like we do so many times. God would have given David anything he asked for if what he had already was not enough. Are you listening?

Although God forgave David the sin, he still suffered the consequences of it. When we despise God by doing that which is wrong, we are in so many words telling Him that we don't think His provision is good enough, and that our will is more important than His.

We forget we have a purpose in the will of God when we pursue our own agenda. And often it hinders us from fulfilling the plan of God by placing long-term problems in our lives. While God wants you to be the lender and not the borrower, He will not keep you from borrowing on your credit cards.

God will not interfere with your free will. Surely God did not want David to do what he did with Bathsheba, but He allowed David to do what he wanted to. And it brought David much heartache. Can you look at David and learn a lesson?

If you're deep in debt, go before the Lord right now and ask Him to forgive you for getting out of His will. Then, ask Him for His perfect plan to get your life back on track and out of debt. Surely God will work to help you speedily come out and be free, once you have confessed your sin before Him.

It's a process, you got yourself into this mess, and you will have to face it and overcome it. But you won't be alone. Even though God wasn't in your getting into debt, when you repent of it, He will be with you to help you come out! God has the way to freedom, to prosperity, to where you can lend and not borrow!

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