From time to time we like to share what others are writing about stewardship, money management, debt reduction, and related topics.
We welcome suggestions from you about other good books.
Breaking Out of Plastic Prison: A 10-Step Program to Financial Freedom
by James D. Dean
Fleming H. Revell. Paper, 191 pp. ISBN 0-8007-5625-8
This book is valuable whether your debt problems stem from overuse of consumer credit cards or not. Along with a healthy Christian perspective, it is packed with wise advice and actual case histories of people who have found financial freedom.
Perhaps the most pertinent case study is that of the author himself: an up-and-coming CPA, enjoying the privileges of one mortgage, two cars, and multiple credit cards – but still puzzled as to why it was difficult to pay bills at the end of each month. He was in the vigor of his thirties, a faithful church-goer, loving husband and father. But every new "fix" he tried only ended in deeper debt. Finally, Dean had to move his wife and kids in with Dean's father.
Dean writes of this experience, "My thirst for financial success had been denied. Suddenly I was thirsty for the Lord, His Word, and, of course, his leading. For the first time in ten years, I felt peace... The healing process had begun. My desire for freedom from my pattern of using debt to bail myself out led to much time in the Bible and on my knees, asking God to teach me exactly where I had strayed."
What God taught him first was the problem with Two Masters (Matt 6:24). Dean discovered, as so many people have not, that though he was a Christian, he had completely "bought into" the world system which says, "You can have everything you want. You deserve it. You should have it now." It was painfully humbling to Dean to place this mindset alongside the words of Christ: "Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Me." (Mark 8:34)
The ten principles the author learned from this season of humility are well explained, and the book includes an Appendix with several helpful forms for achieving godly discipline and good stewardship.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jim Dean is director of associate development with Cornerstone Management Inc., a one-to-one discipling ministry founded in 1985. As an outgrowth of seminars which taught principles of money management from a Biblical perspective, Cornerstone consultants recently established The Institute for Debt-free Living. The Institute is a business which offers Christian tele-coaching programs to bring about financial turnarounds for individuals and families.
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