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A man goes on a long journey, so the story goes. He gives different amounts of money to three managers – amounts ranging in today’s currency from around $300,000 to upwards of $5 million. This ain’t chump change.
One day, the man returns, and asks the three managers a pretty simple question: How much value did you add to what I gave you?
Two of the managers had done similar things with the money. They started making trades. Making the money work for more money. They took some risks, added some work and ideas of their own, and increased the value of the initial stake.
Behind door number three, however, was a guy who buried his stake in the back yard. He did nothing with what he had been given. Assuming that somehow the landowner would be impressed, he beamed with pride as he returned the original stake.
Bad move.
You know this, of course, as a story that Jesus told. But some of the most important words are some of the first: “The kingdom of heaven is like this,” Jesus said.
So, while a lot of us imagine judgment as us standing before God while he counts the cusswords and dirty little thoughts we had, Jesus presents a different idea here. We will give an account to God for how much more value we have added to the gifts He’s given us. This is the LifeVesting principle of Increase:
I will receive an increase on my life choices in proportion to my willingness to invest and wait.
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Hoarding’s back.
I’m sure it never went away, but it’s been back in the news over the last month. Banks are hoarding money. People worldwide are hoarding rice. Myanmar officials and residents are warned about hoarding aid.
People are scared, and when they’re scared, they hoard. OR, somebody else hoards and looks to make a killing off the really scared people.
In a previous post, I mentioned that there are four alter-egos to LifeVestors – consumers, hoarders, gamblers, and codependents. Hoarders are the most unique of these. While consumers live as if there is no tomorrow, hoarders live as if there is a tomorrow, and wherever/whatever it is, it’s gonna be ticked off. Hard. Terrible. And we have to plan for it today.
It’s one thing for literally starving people to make sure they have something to eat for the next few days. It’s another to live with a spirit of fear, even while you’re being wonderfully blessed.
It’s one thing to save and invest for retirement or a rainy day. It’s another thing to create an ongoing bunker mentality based on fear of the future.
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I guess it was the first face-off between parent and teacher in Carrie’s life. She was a little freaked in first grade about some impending disaster reported as fact in her science class – global warming, the death of the ozone layer, or something. We were riding in the car, and she asked me what I thought (in first-grade language, of course) about the certain impending doom of planet.
I found myself speaking from the depths of my soul – using words I’d never put together in the same sentence before.
“Carrie,” I said, “never, never, never believe anyone who would make you afraid of the future.”
I came by that honestly. I remember asking my dad at about the same age, “Did you know that the Russians have enough bombs to destroy every American?” He replied, “Yes, and we have enough bombs to blow up every Russian.” That more or less ended the Cold War for me. (By the way, you just haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Shout to the Lord” sung in Russian. Those American Idol contestants got nothin’ on our brothers and sisters in the former Soviet Union.)
This all came back to me last week. I was shopping with my wife at Walmart and passed a display of some sort of DVD series or books or something. The basic idea was, “spend your money on this to learn about how we’re all going to hell in a handbasket.” I passed.
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Then there’s Marvin Burchall.
Two years ago, Marvin is on the job in his native Burmuda, waiting tables at a resort. And from his perspective, that’s all he was doing. His job.
Lynn Bak saw it a bit differently. She saw an outgoing, approachable young man whose impeccable service and attention to detail revealed a professionalism way beyond his 23 years.
Lynn Bak is paid to know these kinds of things. She coordinates the School of International Education in Bermuda for Endicott College, whose main campus is in metropolitan Boston. She travels to the Elbow Beach Bermuda resort every three weeks or so. And a couple of years ago, she got to know Marvin. You won’t believe what happened next.
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He was one of the most powerful men in the world. But he lived in total fear. He stayed deep in the inner recesses of a huge castle. He barricaded himself in a small, bombproof room, with walls made of concrete three feet thick. He allowed himself only one tiny window protected by thick, yellow glass. With only a few amenities each night, and a military cot for his bed, his self-imposed prison was his fortress within a fortress. He would sleep fitfully, then leap to his feet to check at the yellow glass, to make certain that the dark moving objects on the other side of the glass, his personal guards, were on duty protecting him. His name? Josef Stalin.
Needless to say, Uncle Joe, whose adopted name (Stalin) means – get this – “man of steel,” developed a spirit of fear. Needless also to say, he didn’t get it from God. Though he once was a seminary student. Anyway…
This isn’t about Stalin, but stealin’ – and how the enemy can steal your joy and confidence. [click to continue…]
