Little Bitty

Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. -- Proverbs 13:11

Lottery winners and the third generations of the wealthy are notorious for squandering what might have come to them too easily.  People who win lotteries are quite frequently people who never had much money to manage so they are not very good at it.  This is not an economics lesson, but Bastiat said he had observed the working class, especially in difficult times, still spending money on small luxuries.  I’ve noticed the same kind of phenomenon with members of my own family who are struggling financially.  If something is cheap, they are apt to buy it even though it is completely unnecessary.  I know someone who didn’t make a car payment for four months until the car was hauled off.  In that time, they continued to smoke their cigarettes and buy plants and borders for their flowerbed.  At one point, the man had experienced a good week in his business so he “rewarded” himself with a polo shirt and shorts from Bass Pro.  His closets are stuffed with clothes just like that – much of it branded and overpriced.  I don’t think he even owns a suit.   He has – and I am being somewhat conservative – probably forty pair of cheap shoes – sandals, slides, flip-flops, Vans, and athletic shoes.  He could afford to buy a quality pair of dress shoes, some good work boots, and some nice casual shoes if he would stop wasting his money impulsively buying cheap junk.    (I could tell a story about what I did to get their car back, but that would be a different post.)

What is true in the natural is true as well in the spiritual.  Western civilization is built upon the foundation of Judaism and Christianity.  It has enriched and enlightened us for centuries.  Much like the Prodigal, we have burned through this inheritance at an alarming rate.  Julie first brought this idea to my attention a couple of years back.  Many of us do not realize, and some actively deny, the role our traditional values, Judeo-Christian values, play in the culture we enjoy today.  That cultural and spiritual heritage was built up bit by bit by the Spirit of God from Abraham, Moses, and David, Christ Himself, Paul and Peter, Rome and the Church, Luther and the Reformation, Whitefield, Wesley, Edwards and the revivalists.  Christian thinking shaped and tempered the American Revolution and the founding of our Republic.  The secular revolution of France, though historically near was spiritually distant and led to a very different end. 

The people who escaped tyranny and found freedom from religious persecution understood the value of freedom.  Those who had lived in slavery, being denied the most basic of human rights understood.  The generations who had liberty and an enlightened culture and worldview handed to them on a silver platter understood less and less.  It’s not a new story.  You can see the cycle of liberation, prosperity, apathy, enslavement, and repentance in the Book of Judges.  As surely as the top of the wheel rolls to the bottom, destruction awaits those who were hastily blessed.

It is easy to look at the situation in this country, especially among those who call themselves Christians, and become discouraged.  As Jeremiah asked, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?  And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?”  If we refused to fight when we still could have won, will we fight when all is lost? 

I don’t think anyone imagined that it would get this bad.  I mean, it’s just a pack of cigarettes, right?  It’s just a coffee at Starbucks?  Five bucks, more or less, isn’t going to make or break anybody, is it?  So what if the kids at school don’t say the pledge, don’t pray, don’t learn to read?  What does it matter if the history they teach is exactly right or not?  After all, who really knows what happened?  All these politicians are the same.  It doesn’t matter which one you vote for.  Why bother to vote at all?  Remember how they told us that character didn’t matter?   Then they end up asking, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”  What difference does it make now that they misled and lied?  It’s just a little thing after all, and it’s already over and done. 

Little by little, bit by bit, one piece at a time, we have dismantled our culture and squandered our inheritance.  I hear people all over talking about revolution and armed conflict.  Bring it on, they say.  Many of us would like to see things set right in one bright, glorious moment of justice and restoration. 

It won’t happen.  If we build it back, we will have to build it back the same way we tore it down, piece by piece, heart by heart, minute by minute.  Don’t wait for the revolution, the apocalypse, or Armageddon.  Don’t even wait for tomorrow.    We don’t have to.  I can start working on my own heart today.  I can stop, today, making excuses for my own attitude.  A dollar is still a dollar.  It buys a lot less than it did back when Methuselah and I were in school, but you’ll never have two, or ten or a hundred, until you have one.  It’s the same way with anything of value.  A person doesn’t become stronger, healthier, richer,  a better husband or wife, a better Christian, a better father or mother, son or daughter,  or a better citizen  in one evening – the decision can be made in a moment, but the reality has to be lived out moment by moment.