Don’t bite off more than you can chew

One of the best Psalms in the Old Testament is no. 37. Many people know it by heart, and have committed it to memory. Verse four is probably the most popular verse in the chapter, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

But when I was reading through this popular psalm earlier this week, I came upon a verse I had most likely read numerous times, but it had never made an impression on me until now. It was verse 21 which reads in the New King James version as "The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives."

It just blew me away how practical and simple this verse is and if we simply adhere to it, how much it would revolutionize our society. In the first part of the verse, we are shown how a wicked person "borrows" without ever intending to repay. To borrow in this sense means to take what you have no claim on and affirm that you'll repay or replace whatever it is you are borrowing. But the connotation of this verse is that the "wicked" never intends to repay what has been borrowed. On the other hand, the righteous man in the second part of the verse has plenty to give and shows mercy to those who are in need.

In our day it seems we are more wicked than good. In college we have no sense of debt and "paying back" what we borrow. You have to look no further than college loans. We hear the cries of students complaining of the cost of college, and make no mistake it is high. But in many cases, those same students have the latest video game systems, flat screen TVs, and new cars and phones. They carry the huge data cell phone plans that cost a $100 a month, but with all this excess we still hear the cries for a bailout, for help from somebody else to repay our debts.

It's wickedness. Everything and every choice in life has a cost. The good choices are choices that bring about more righteousness than the other choices. In our society, it's practically impossible not to carry some debt. But in the book of Deuteronomy, God instructed the Hebrew people to forgive debts on the seventh year of the debt. This commandment led to loans only being made that could be paid back in seven years time. Students, we need to make the same assessments. Let's not make debts as individuals and nations that can't be repaid in less than seven years. Anything else will be a life of slavery. As the Proverb says "the borrower is servant to the lender."

   Contact Nate Stansberry at stansberry5@marshall.edu.