Do we really care about our debt? Do American citizens care? As of this past Thur., Feb.2, 2012 the US National Debt Clock is clicking at about $15.4 Trillion. That means every man, woman and child (of the 13 million Americans) owe about $50,000 of that debt. If each household consists of 3 persons (actually, the average is 2.6 persons) each U.S. household owes about $127,000 of the national debt. But are people really owning up to national debt as being their own debt. Or do they somehow prefer to ignore it, or “charge it” to the government, or to big business? It is worse. If you add to that debt the average of ($100,000 personal debt including mortgages) and we come to the very sad estimate of $250,000 dollars of debt in each American household.
Though Canada’s national debt is not as high (per capita), still the per-household personal debt of Canadians is about the same as that of Americans. We also use credit too much and owe close to 50% more total per household debt than our total household earnings in a year. Are we taking our debt serious? Do we care about our debts? Or do we right away talk about how government wastes taxpayer money? Do we own up to our debts? Are we trying to pay them off? Or do we just think they will somehow go away. The USA has experienced that there will be a “pay-day” – for example, the fall 2008 collapse and all the housing foreclosures since. “Pay day some day”.
There is an even greater problem: our spiritual debts. We have incurred an immense debt of guilt before God by our sins. We will be called to give an account of this debt one day. Each sinful action, word and thought add more and more to our debts. Do we own it as our guilt; our fault, our responsibility to pay our debts? Has it really become an urgent problem that has driven us to our knees before God? It must be faced and dealt with: will it be on Judgment Day or will you “this day...” pray “forgive us our debts?”