Getting Into Debt

There is a line from the old hymn we sing, “O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” Match this thought with a line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.

Polonius:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge.

On a human to human basis, this may hold some common sense. I rarely loan anything to a friend that I would not be willing to give away. About twenty percent of the time a book I loan to another is not returned. So, I only loan books that I am willing to release forever. Some folks will ask you for the “shirt off your back” while others would rather die than to be “in your debt.”

I think the extreme of each dispositions, the “g’me, g’me, g’me” and “never ask”, are character flaws but if I had to choose it would be the first over the second. I think it far better to cultivate a receiving spirit over against a giving spirit. For me, giving is easy. Receiving, however, builds my soul, and increases my love for the giver.

You cannot know salvation, that is, you cannot be saved and will remain lost, without a willingness to receive something from God purely on the basis of His rich mercy. For some of us, this is very, very hard to do. God had to break my stubborn prideful spirit before He could pour His Spirit into my stone cold heart and slowly turn it into a “heart of flesh.” Borrowing does “dull the edge” and thereby rounds it out so it does not pierce the soul of another.