All of us have likely felt some financial pressure at some point in life. Maybe you are in the thick of it right now, and the pressure is on. Learning what God and the Bible say about life and money is the key to financial peace.
If you are in a hard place right now or unsure about your future financially, you are not alone. I want you to know there is hope. Everyone has a different story about their life and financial journey. We would love to share our story, and hopefully, it will give you some hope.
As a single man many years before I, Dean Mitchell, met my beautiful wife Lauren, I was in prayer, and God told me, "You will go to zero on your own, and from there, I will bless you." I thought that did not sound like a nice thing for God to say, so I put it out of my mind. I continued living life as a normal person in our culture. I had credit cards, a house with a large mortgage payment, and a line of credit available if I ever needed it.
I was living everyday life just covering the bills, and then I met the woman of my dreams. I proposed to her, and we set the wedding day. When it came closer to the wedding day, I kicked my roommates out. Six months leading up to the wedding day, finances got tighter, so I started to use my line of credit.
The financial struggles for us were a collaboration of a few issues at the time. I was not making much money, and Lauren quit her job in West Vancouver.
I owned a business with my father; financially, things started okay. The income slowly began to decline to a point where we were not making much money. It got to the place where my dad and I sat down and had a challenging discussion. We had to close up shop or make a drastic change in how we ran the business.
At that time, we personally had a lot of debt with no emergency fund, a maxed-out line of credit, a dumb investment loan, and a big mortgage. We were STRESSED OUT. I would spend hours researching the process of going bankrupt and how to protect my assets from creditors. I knew that was not the answer, but we were at the bottom.
When I was having the tough conversation with my dad, I knew we needed to press through. We drastically changed the business process' and things completely turned around. Since then, the company has continued to grow, and our income has continued to increase. Back when God told me you are going to go to zero, it was true. I went to zero all on my own and took my wife with me. When I say zero, I mean our net worth. My liabilities minus my assets equaled zero. Fortunately, God helped us early in our marriage.
At the time, we lacked a ton of information about having a sound financial plan. A friend happened to share an article written by Dave Ramsey. After reading this article is when I started to devour his teachings. He lays out a straightforward biblical-based strategy that made a lot of sense to me. It gave us the motivation to move forward.
That was nine years ago. Since then, we have followed the steps Dave teaches. For several years we have been saving for retirement and our kids' university. Our big goal now is to pay off the mortgage in three years and be completely debt-free. We had a net worth of zero and now are millionaires. Thanks to the grace of God, we are on a biblical financial plan and have peace about our future.
Our family history and the culture we live in form our perceptions. I encourage you to join us and hit the reset button on your perceptions of finances. Learn what God and the Bible have to say about life, money, and leaving a legacy.
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