Promises are important. The law mandates that people keep promises-in law school, we called it contracts. Even kids understand it and do the pinky swear thing. Middle-schoolers used to pinprick their fingers and mix blood signifying the importance of their promises. Everyone knows a promise is important. What is a promise?

1 a :  a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified b :  a legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act
2 :  reason to expect something ; especially :  ground for expectation of success, improvement, or excellence
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/promise

As Christ followers, we are told often about the many promises of God and further, instructed and encouraged to cling to those promises. Understood. I have said that many times to myself, and others, when going through trials and heartbreaking challenges. It is one of those tender admonitions that come to our heads and mouths frequently when the circumstances are inconsistent with what seems fair, right, just or loving.

Perhaps one of the greatest promises in history was the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then repeated to Moses in Exodus 3:17: “And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.”  First part of the promise: God would take them out of their daily lot of misery in Egypt. Second part of the promise: he would bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey. This promise is repeated throughout the book of Exodus, numerous times, to Moses, and, through Moses, to the people of Israel. Of course, God had many opportunities to repeat the promise in the course of the Israelites wandering for 40 years through the desert on the way to that promised land.

After 40 years, the time came when God was about to take them to the edge of the Jordan River to cross into the promised land. But first, He called Moses up to Mount Sinai and talked to Moses for 40 days.  As He talked, God, with His very own finger wrote the law on two tablets He made. (Ex 31:18) Meanwhile, back in the valley, the people of Israel got bored-very bored-and so they committed a great sin.

Out of their boredom came evil thoughts about their leader Moses who had, by their assessment, gone up the mountain to do God knows what (literally) and about God, who, at the moment, seemed very far away. The people therefore went to Aaron, Moses’ trusty brother and helper, and asked him to fashion them a god who would go before them, who they could see and whom they could worship. (Ex 32) And so, Aaron did as the people asked.

 The Lord, though He was on the mountain talking to Moses, saw what was happening and said to Moses: “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.  They have been quick to turn  away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ “I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” (Ex 32:7-10)

Moses, however, was quick to remind God of His promise: “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.” (Ex 32:13, 14)

God remembered His promise and relented of His anger, even though it was just and righteous. After all, the people of Israel had broken their promises to God, those promises which they repeated again and again to Moses, and through Moses to the Lord: “all that you have said, we will do.” Thus, even though the people had broken their promise to the Lord, God relented and forgave them their broken promise. However, though God forgave the people their broken promise, He said that there would be a punishment for the broken promise-there would be a price to pay for the broken promise. In Ex. 32:33 God instructed Moses “Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

Moses expected God to keep His promise and therefore reminded Him of that promise. But certainly neither Moses nor the people of Israel could have imagined the price they would have to pay for God to keep His promise. Indeed, God was ready to give the people the land He had declared on oath to give to them, the promised land flowing with milk and honey. But keeping the promise would be at a price. What’s a price?

1 archaic :  value, worth
2 a :  the quantity of one thing that is exchanged or demanded in barter or sale for another b :  the amount of money given or set as consideration for the sale of a specified thing
3 :  the terms for the sake of which something is done or undertaken: as a :  an amount sufficient to bribe one b :  a reward for the apprehension or death of a person
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/price

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.” (Ex 33:1-3)

The price to be paid for obtaining the promised land was that God’s presence would not go with the people of Israel into the promised land. They would have that which they had been promised, that for which they had waited a generation, that which they had wandered for 40 years in the desert to get to. They would get into the land flowing with milk and honey, but they would go without the very presence of God. What is the presence?

1 :  the fact or condition of being present
2 a :  the part of space within one's immediate vicinity b :  the neighborhood of one of superior especially royal rank …
4 :  one that is present: as a :  the actual person or thing that is present b :  something present of a visible or concrete nature
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/presence

They would get the place, the thing they had been promised, but without the presence of the Promisor. Was that a price they were willing to pay? Is that a price I am willing to pay? Do I want the great career, the success, the bells, the whistles of this life, the happiness, fame, the material stuff this world can offer me, and forego the presence of God Himself? Is that a price I am willing to pay for a promise fulfilled? Moses was not willing to pay that price.

Moses immediately withdrew into the Tent of Meeting and plainly said to the Lord: “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”  (Ex 33: 15, 16)

Having the things, not just the material things conjured up by the phrase a land flowing with milk and honey, but the intangibles like comfort, security, satisfaction, being free from pain, wane in comparison to the presence of God. Moses would rather have stayed in the desert with God’s presence than enter the promised land without it. The presence of God Himself is worth more than even the promises of God. 

Though I believe and remind God of His promises, I cling to His presence. All the milk and honey in the land of Canaan is not worth the promise without His presence.

Bankruptcy and the Bible

I am a lawyer and I often feel I should apologize for thinking like a lawyer. This is mainly because thinking like a lawyer leads me to speak like a lawyer and that can be a real problem. However, every once in a while there is a benefit to thinking and speaking like a lawyer. Today, it was a benefit. I was reading my Bible and thinking about bankruptcy. Doesn’t everyone? I wasn’t thinking about a personal bankruptcy but about bankruptcy in general. Mainly, I was contemplating that connection between the Bible and bankruptcy because I read Colossians 2: 13-14: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” That, for those of us who think about bankruptcy, our own or others, is amazing good news.

If you are not familiar with the process of a bankruptcy, the short explanation is that it is a statutory creation (meaning conceived by a legislature) by which an individual or an organization can repay or diminish all or some of the debt of that person or organization under the protection of the bankruptcy court. Essentially, the court looks at all the debt, all the assets, recognizes that the individual or the organization is overwhelmed by debt and then figures out an equitable (to the creditors) and manageable (to the debtor) way for the individual or the organization to be relieved of the debt; in some cases, the court will “forgive” the debt entirely. For simplicity sake, let’s just refer to individuals in bankruptcy only.

Statistics compiled by the Bankruptcy Institute show that in the first quarter of the year 2012, 355,000 people have filed bankruptcy, which was down about 12 percent from the same period of time in 2011.  For the year 2011, 1.37 million people filed bankruptcy, which was less than the 1.55 million people who filed bankruptcy in 2010. http://www.bcsalliance.com/bankruptcy_statestats.html. In 2015, the number was approximately 819,240 bankruptcies filed nationally. Thus, the trend is slowing down. Nonetheless, that is a lot of bankruptcies.

Many people have a friend or family member whose unbearable financial stress has been relieved through use of the bankruptcy code. And certainly, it is a legal, legitimate means of getting out of debt. What’s the catch? Why wouldn’t everyone under financial strain take that route? One reason is that the person who declares bankruptcy carries that bankruptcy on their credit report for the next seven years making it difficult to get new credit, get a loan, buy a house or a car. Thus, even though the law gives a pass, it is a pass with a price. The debtor still “pays” for seven years after filing for bankruptcy. No new credit-essentially, creditors don’t trust the debtor until the price (the seven years) has been paid.

And yet, as we see from the statistics above, a lot of people and organizations elect bankruptcy as a good option, or as the only option.

Interestingly, there are people who, while being legally relieved of the debt, feel a moral obligation to repay creditors even after being declared bankrupt. Thus, even though the law gives them the individual a pass on repayment, something in the heart of the individual drives them to want to pay the debt back since it was most often a debt rightly incurred. This is not a legal obligation. The drive, or sense that the obligation should be repaid, is actually borne out of moral compunction. i.e. “I bought it. I could not pay for it. I have what I bought and I should pay for it even if not on the terms that I originally agreed to, and even though the law says I no longer owe that money.”  In other words, the legal debt is relieved but the moral debt, the need to “do the right thing” is not relieved. That points to something deeper inside us than what a statute or a law can fix.

We do not all struggle with overwhelming financial debt. But, we all have a moral debt. We have all screwed up. The Bible calls that sin. And like financial debt or credit cards, the time to pay eventually comes. For those who have sin (all of us) the payment comes as death, temporally and eternally. So what can we do when we recognize our own desperate situation morally and/or spiritually? Is there a bankruptcy code that relieves us of our debt, of the sense of condemnation, of the guilt and the shame, let alone the seven years bad credit record? Who really wants to have the past brought up again and again, a constant reminder of our screw ups? Not many.

The good news is that there is a way out of our spiritual indebtedness. That way is not a way conceived by a legislature nor implemented by a court. In fact, the way to relief of personal moral indebtedness is counter intuitive; it is through someone else being publicly shamed and someone else paying for all our debts. The way out is through the blood sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. That payment completely takes away our indebtedness and removes the legal obligation. That is better than bankruptcy. The blood sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is far better than a spiritual bankruptcy code (which some would call the law). The difference between a spiritual bankruptcy code (the law) and having a debt paid off, is that the former may cover the debt superficially, but does not forgive the debt morally or take away the shame or guilt. Someone else paying the debt completely, as Christ did, leaves us not only legally free but morally free from attempts at or compunction to repay. What is incredible to me is that the indebtedness is completely paid. That means no calls, no seven year credit ding, no guilt, no shame, no looking over your shoulder wondering how you can pay back the debt. It isn’t just that someone found a way to pay the debt back in part, or over time, or at the creditor’s loss. The debt is paid in full now, completely.

When I read this verse, I thought about it immediately in terms of what I would say to a client: “You are not going to believe this: someone actually paid your immense debt at no cost to you but at tremendous cost to himself. You owe nothing to your creditors but everything to the one who paid the debt. The case against you is closed. The debt is paid in full.” What client would not jump at that opportunity? What client would not want to know who the beneficent person was? What client would not immediately feel relief, gratitude and perhaps delirious joy at such news?

Likewise, when confronted with my spiritual bankruptcy, why would I not jump with joy at the good news that my debt has been paid in full, immediately freeing me from the debt, the guilt, the shame and the seven years of it constantly being thrown into their face. Such is the good news we know and share, lawyers and non-lawyers alike.