GOD DOESN’T OWE,
AND NEITHER
DO YOU
He […] looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
— HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
We live in a society where most people are in debt. Nearly everyone owes lots of money for credit-card bills, car payments, mortgages, and business investments. It is really, really rare that someone in our culture is solvent. Americans currently hold 609 million credit cards, or two for every man, woman, and child in the country. The total amount of personal debt in the United States is $16 trillion, including $14 trillion in mortgage debt and $2 trillion in credit-card debt. The average American home owner owes $200,000 to mortgage companies, and the average household owes $16,000 to credit-card companies. The national debt of the United States is $62 trillion, or $534,000 for every household in America. Forty percent of the U.S. revenue goes to pay off loans. No wonder people sport bumper stickers proclaiming: I OWE, I OWE, IT’S OFF TO WORK I GO.
Consequently, many people feel burdened by debt. They worry about paying their bills, borrow from one credit card to pay another, and make foolish or illicit deals in hopes of salvaging their finances. The number one cause of arguments in marriages is money. Our individual and collective consciousness about money and debt is crying out for healing.
While many people feel anxious or desperate about debt and money, there are ways to look at these dynamics that can empower you. Nothing is good or bad in and of itself; perspective determines joy or pain. Money is not the root of all evil. Fear is. If you can remove fear and guilt from your relationship with money, all financial transactions, including the experience of debt, will shift … and serve you.
The Identity Factor
Let’s begin with a big-picture shift in your relationship with money. Most people who owe money over a length of time begin to think of themselves as a debtor. They develop the mind-set: I owe, and I will always owe. But “As a man thinketh, so shall he be.” When you identify yourself as a debtor, you keep creating and attracting experiences that prove your identity. At some point the problem is less that you owe money, and more that you are entrenched in an identity as a debtor.
From a broader perspective, such an identity is false and runs contrary to who and what you really are. As a spiritual being, you are created in the image and likeness of God. Everything God is, you are; and everything God is not, you are not. When you say, “I owe” or “I am a debtor,” you are suggesting that God owes or God is a debtor. This is not true about God, and it is not true about you.
In the world of human interaction, you may have run up debt, but on a broader dimension you are absolutely whole, solvent, and literally as rich as God. The entire universe is your estate, and all the good in it belongs to you. The experience of debt exists only at the surface level of existence. You and your life run so much deeper than your financial situation that what balance sheets say is relatively meaningless. Your spiritual balance sheet takes into account joy, happiness, and inner peace—not dollars. When you shift your vision from what your bank statement says to what your soul statement says, lack and despair dissolve, and abundance is the truth of your life.
If you examine the concept that God could owe, you can see how ludicrous the idea is. What would God owe? Why? To whom? What recourse would some illusory creditor have if God didn’t pay? The entire idea is meaningless. All of nature functions on the principle of giving its gifts, not collecting from others. Creation is generous, happy just to be itself, and makes no demands. The sun does not hold the earth in debt; it simply delights to shine on it. Neither do the trees demand a return for the oxygen they provide. Debt exists only in the minds of people, never in nature.
If you would like to offset your identity as a debtor and the experiences that follow in its wake, use this affirmation:
God doesn’t owe, and neither do I.
If you declare this statement and recognize its truth, your identity as a debtor will begin to dissolve and your life will mirror solvency, not debt … supply, not lack. You will think and feel differently about money, and you will see literal, material changes in your prosperity. When you change your mind, everything changes.
At this point you may say, “Well, that’s a nice idea, but my landlord will not accept an affirmation in lieu of my rent. He prefers cash.”
Mind is the builder
— Edgar Cayce
Yes, yes, understood. But remember that when you upgrade your mind-set, you set into motion dynamics that transform circumstances. All material change is preceded by consciousness change. The world is an effect more than a cause. This is why most lottery winners revert to their former level of wealth within a short time. Their minds do not have the capacity to hold or manage large sums, so the money goes away. By this same principle many millionaires have lost their net worth, but regained it and more because they live in a wealth mentality. Even though they may experience temporary setbacks, their mind-set re-magnetizes wealth. The source of all wealth is a wealthy mind.
If, while using this affirmation, you don’t resonate with the concept of God, substitute “the universe,” “life,” or “well-being.” Don’t get hung up on the terminology. It is the dynamic principle that counts and works. Don’t deny yourself the experience of success because in elementary school a nun slapped your open palm with a ruler. If you continue slapping your hand, she wins. If you open your palm to receive wealth, you win.
The way to move from debt to solvency is not simply to work harder or move money around. You achieve solvency and surplus by working smarter and moving your thoughts around.
Shining the Light on the Shadow
Financial debt is a symptom of a deeper psychological sense of debt. If you harbor a self-image of guilt or unworthiness, that belief often plays out in your financial life. Many people believe that they are defective and they do not deserve to have what they want. They feel they are less than other people and are indebted to them. They believe they do not have a right to be here and they need others to validate them. They give their power away to other people, and since money mirrors energy flow, currency flows away from them to others.
Religions instill and promulgate this sense of debt by preaching concepts of sin and unworthiness. They tell you that there was something wrong with you before you even emerged from the womb, and you are so intrinsically vile that you need an external redeemer to offset your iniquity. A savior died for your sins, and you gain heaven by the intercession of someone more worthy than you. If you adopt such a belief, you will be playing psychological catch-up ball for your entire life. Since money reflects consciousness, you will forever be trying to catch up on your finances.
You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare.… Only the creations of light are real.
— A Course in Miracles
The cure for debt is to recognize that you deserve enough because you are enough. You were created whole and worthy, and so you remain. There is nothing about you that owes anything to anyone. If you can tap into your inherent enoughness, you will find your way out of debt. You are an abundant being living in an abundant universe. That is the truth about you and life. Everything else is a story you made up.
Just as you made up a story of debt (or you adopted one), you can make up a story of prosperity. The universe is willing and happy to prove your prosperity story, for that story is far closer to the truth about you than the debt yarn you spin. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of debt, I will fear no evil.” Debt is but a shadow that momentarily obscures your vision of the sun. Just as the sun remains fully intact even if a cloud floats before it, abundance is real even if a momentary notion of lack blocks it. That thought takes the form of I owe, or I am not enough. Replace that notion with the affirmation I am enough, and the universe is happy to provide for my needs, and the cloud disappears.
Don’t make dissolution of debt any more complicated than it needs to be. Healing is an inside job. Your current financial situation is the result of the thoughts you held in the past, and tomorrow’s financial situation will be the result of the thoughts you launch today. The first step to expand your bank balance is to expand your mind. When mind changes, what’s “mine” changes. God doesn’t owe, and neither do you. That insight is a gift, not a loan, and you will never have to pay it back.
The One Thing You Can’t Afford to Postpone
Another way to rise above a debt mentality is to find fulfillment right where you stand, no matter what your bank account says. Don’t postpone joy until you are out of debt. Joy is the only thing you cannot afford to postpone.
Money is a paper game; it is not the source of happiness. It is an effect, not a cause. Many millions of people who do not have money are far happier than people who have lots of money. They find riches in simple things, and do not let their bank account rule their peace. There are also wealthy people who are happy—but they were happy before they had money. A USA Today survey asked wealthy people, “Which came first: success or happiness?” Sixty-five percent of respondents reported that happiness preceded success. In other words, happiness attracts success more powerfully than success attracts happiness. So money does not cause happiness or unhappiness. Outlook and attitude cause happiness or unhappiness.
Many corporations show debt on their financial statements, but they keep making money and paying their employees well. Airlines and department-store chains have filed bankruptcy statements, but continue to operate, business as usual, and even grow. Their executives do not pull their hair out because they are losing money on paper. Many such companies and their employees continue to thrive, and so can you.
Money is one thing. Life is another. If you think money is life, your life will go up and down with money. If you focus on joy in the present moment, money will assume its rightful place as one aspect of life, not all of it.
The Prosperity Pie
Consider that prosperity is a pie, or a pie-shaped graph, and money is one small slice of it. There are so very, very many slices of the prosperity pie that go far beyond money. You may be extremely wealthy in family, love, health, nature, music, inspiration, connection to a Higher Power, friends, stimulating ideas, sports and recreation, playtime with pets, fascinating hobbies, creativity, and on and on and on. All of these experiences are rock-solid forms of wealth, far more real and valuable than dollars in your hand. If you feel poor financially, consider all of the other ways that you are rich, and you will immediately experience lavish abundance.
Doing such an exercise will make you feel wealthy, yet it serves a broader purpose. Feeling prosperous will put you in the optimal position to attract money and other forms of abundance. The Law of Attraction posits that you attract more of whatever you focus on. If your dominant feeling is wealth, you will attract situations that mirror wealth. If your dominant experience is poverty, you will attract situations that reflect poverty. You are always manifesting, even when it appears that nothing is happening. Take care what your dominant feeling is, for that is the magnet that will draw equivalent people, events, and experiences into your world.
A rising tide raises all the ships.
— Source unknown
If you are worried about money, temporarily take your attention off the subject of money and give your attention to other forms of prosperity. When you are absorbed in the experience of abundance in other areas of your life, you will amplify your ability to attract prosperity in your financial arena.
Solvent Now
You are spiritually solvent now. That is the only form of solvency that really matters. Erase debt from your mind and heart, and it will be erased from your balance sheet. Do not fall prey to “lack” thinking that immobilizes the masses, and do not accept any definition of yourself as owing. Jesus did not die to pay off your karmic debts. He lived, and lives, to demonstrate that you don’t have any. God’s idea of grace supersedes your idea of karma.
Do not be distracted by news of financial woe. There is nothing new about such news. News is based on drama, fear, illusion, and sensationalism. Create your own news and your own economy by virtue of your consciousness, independent of the economy that others create with their consciousness. Claim the wealth you were born to enjoy, which exists fully and freely right now.
God doesn’t owe, and neither do you. Know it, believe it, and live it … and you will find that solvency is not an impossible dream, but a solid reality.