It Starts with WE not THEY

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. --Matthew 7:3-5


This passage sums up what is going on with the financial crisis this nation is having. How can we expect Washington to get their financial situation fixed when we are sitting at home with record amounts of debt as well? How can we demand they fix their problem while we sit back and do nothing about our own? We are so concentrated on other people's problems that we can't fix our own!!


This is when we need to step back and realize that this financial crisis is not the problem at all! It is the symptom. Our real problems are:
1) Discipline: We can't say no to debt
2) Entitlement: We are spoiled
3) Greed: We are so far in debt, we have no money left to give


We have raised a nation that was told we can have everything we want and get it now. We never realized this as a problem until we started running out of money, the housing market crashed and unemployment skyrocketed. The fact that we as individuals and us as a nation are so much in debt is not the problem and there is no real way to fix it. We need to first, discipline ourselves and realize that we simply can't have everything we want right now. Sacrifices must be made and we will see that once we start to work on these problems, our financial situation will heal as well. Mature people who want a solution look for something they can DO. Entitled people look for someone they can BLAME. Before we point fingers, let's look for a solution. Let's get our own finances under control without demanding the governments help and before we demand the government to fix their crisis. Let's pay off our debt, live on a budget, save more money and give more money. If all of us start handling our finances well, congress will follow suit.


--A Future Millionaire


P.S. A lot of this was based off a sermon by Andy Stanley, if you would like to learn more from him directly check it out here.