By: Charity Gutierrez
This morning when I went to unload my dishwasher I dreaded it. I took it for granted. Instead of seeing it for what it is… a big help… I saw it for what it wasn’t… a big burden.
Tonight I saw my dishwasher as a faithful servant. A servant who works for me every night and sometimes mid-day, cleaning up after my family with no complaints as often as I need. My dishwasher is a true help… it is a gift from God.
And of this dishwasher… where is it? Is it not in the home where I live? Is this home not another gift from God?
And of this home… why do I live here? Is it not because this is where the Lord has placed my family here for a purpose? Is purpose not one of the most beautiful gifts from God?
Is this home not the place where my family is kept safe and dry… bathed in warm water and dressed in clean clothes. All of which are blessings from God. Blessings which require money and create bills that must be paid.
And what of these bills that must be paid? Who pays my bills? I don’t and truly my husband does not either. Yes my husband has an income, yet it is not truly his. My husband only takes the money the Lord has blessed him with and hands it over to those who the Lord wants to have it. There is no venture or place that the Lord has brought us to where he has not provided. I have been obsessed with our family being “debt-free”. But something dawned on me tonight. We are.
Where did all these thoughts originate from? It all started this evening at dinner time. My six-year-old son was asking, “Wouldn’t it be great to live in a house where you lived for free?” I looked at him and thought about how unappreciative and ignorant he sounded and then realized that is how I must sound to God.
For two years now I have imagined winning a miracle home where I had no house payment. For seven years I have dreamed and prayed for seeing all of our debt become paid off. Well tonight it has.
I told my son, “We do live for free.” For the first time I really “got it”. Yes we have ”debt” by the world’s standards- school loans and a house payment- yet if I really think about it… it is not our debt. It is the Lord’s and it is the Lord who pays our debts. We live for free.
Where the Lord has called us to be in the past, He continues to pay the bills for today. We have not once gone without. We have not once been late on any bill payment. Every child that has been brought into our family the Lord has provided abundantly. It is only because we have followed his lead. As we are faithful to follow his lead, He is faithful to pay the bill.
In this same way he paid the ultimate bill for my sin two-thousand and nine years ago on a cross set up on a hill. Though I did not know him then, he knew that more than two-thousand years later I would call on him for help. Yet I am only one of the many who have called out to the Lord for help. For there were many who called on the Lord before Jesus was ever born, yet still it was Jesus who paid the debt of their sin long after they had died. And for those who came and continue to come long after his death, it will still be Jesus who pays the price of their sin because he paid it in advance. For there are many that can answer a call for help, but there is no other who can answer the call for the help of salvation.
Encouraging Word: Rethink your family’s debt. If your debt is continuously provided for… consider yourself debt free. If your debt is not provided for start seeking the one who has already paid all your debts in full.
John 8:36
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
