Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Praise God, I'm Free at Last!

I paid off my mortgage the other day. I’ve got to admit that it made me a little nervous. I’d been saving up the money for some time and it made me nervous because my bank account suddenly dropped by a significant amount. But I talked myself into hitting the button. The mortgage is gone. I am officially debt free!

It will take me a while to build up my savings to what it was before, but it is very freeing to know that there isn’t a bank out there who has a right to foreclose on my house or to repossess my car. And though life always has expenses, it is nice to know that if I were to suddenly lose my job that I would have a roof over my head for as long as it took to find a new one.

Ultimately, it is God who provides and in this case, I believe it is he who has given me the ability to pay off my house. He has blessed me well, though I frequently wonder why. I certainly don’t deserve all he has given me.

As I think about this, I can only say that the wealthiest people in the world are those who know how to live within their means. I work with people who make more money than me, but to hear some of them talk, they make hardly anything. I once watched a documentary on the wealthy and one person made the comment that he just didn’t see how someone could live on $6 million a year. And yet, I’ve seen people who made low five figure salaries who never lacked for anything. It doesn’t matter how much money a person makes as much as it matters what they do with it.

I’m at that point where I will have to give thought to what I’m going to do with that money that will no longer be going toward principle and interest. Much of it will go into savings, because there will be other major expenses in my lifetime, and I would rather not go into debt again. But where and how much? I must give that some thought, but I’m glad to be free.