How to Eliminate Debt
by Drenda Keesee
Money is an extension of who we are.
Money represents your time and your life.
Where your money goes is where your heart goes.
Sure, we all have things that we like and enjoy; that’s the way God made us. But when we put ourselves in financial and emotional bondage to gain something that we think will make us happy, or that we think will help us, it’s doing just the opposite.
I wrote How I Shortcut God months ago about how I did just that—I put Gary and myself in financial bondage to gain something I thought would make us happy at the time.
I wasn’t patient, and I let the desires of a moment…
…jeopardize our future.
God has shown Gary and I so many things about money over the years.
We made plenty of mistakes with money in the early years of our marriage and raising a family. We worked hard, but we just couldn’t seem to make enough money to pay our bills, let alone get ahead. We soon found ourselves in a financial pit, owing on 10 maxed-out credit cards, three finance company loans, two car payments, back taxes, judgments and liens, and $26,000 to relatives.
We lived with our five children in a small, broken-down, 1800s farmhouse, complete with weeds growing through the broken windowpanes. We barely had money for food, let alone home repairs. Our cars were broken-down, too—with bent frames, rusted out floorboards, and mileage at more than 200,000 on each of them.
Gary hit his breaking point one day when yet another collector called our home, and he collapsed on our bed desperately crying out to God.
Nothing had changed for us for nine very long years.
Things had only gotten worse.
That was when God revealed several life-changing things to Gary: He told Gary that we had always trusted in debt and the world’s system more than we had trusted in His Word and His Kingdom.
God said, “Take the time to learn how my Kingdom operates, for most of My Church is in the same situation that you are…I want my people free financially.”
There’s so much more to our story, but we went from financial ruin to being completely debt-free over the next two and a half years!
Financial ruin to completely debt-free.
I can’t even describe how that feels. We were able to pay cash for our cars and to build the house we had always dreamed of having. Our lives drastically changed.
Here’s the thing: financial success doesn’t just happen.
You have to learn what the Bible says about money.
You have to learn how to apply the financial principles of the Kingdom to your life.
You have to truly trust that the One who made you, the One that created the earth, the One that has the power to prosper your finances, to build your business, to build your life, to take you from being the tail and make you the head.
No matter how bad your situation is, it is fixable.
But you have to make important decisions to change your financial future.
It’s not easy, and there are plenty of money traps out there for you to fall prey to. In fact, there are some businesses that deliberately set you up to fall into the debt trap.
The traps are very subtle, and you may not even realize how making the decision to give them your money will affect your financial future. But you can learn how to protect yourself from money manipulators, and you can make financial freedom a reality in your life.
God has so much more for you. Your life is precious and valuable to Him. He has MORE for you than you can even imagine! It’s time for you to discover the amazing things God can do through you and for you! It’s time for you to have MORE of the things of God!
Let me help you learn what the Bible says about money and how you can apply the financial principles of the Kingdom to your life.
~Drenda
ps…Are you looking for a good church? Be sure and listen on Saturday evening or catch the 3 services on Sunday for Faith Life Church!
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesee’s have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then the irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
