Crisis, Commitment, Communion

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

I think I heard that there were three winning tickets for this week’s huge Powerball drawing.  That’s means probably a minimum of a hundred million or so to each winner – a lot of money to be dumped into someone’s lap.  Most of us cannot even imagine what that means, and most people cannot handle that kind of wealth.  We have learned how to manage the income we have.  Poor people have acquired skills in dealing with poverty.  Show up at any Walmart or similar store the day after the monthly load of EBT cards takes place.  These people know to the minute when their money will be available.  They know to the penny how much they have -- three or four hundred bucks, or fifteen hundred, a person like that can manage with some degree of skill.  Give them access to a hundred thousand, a million or a hundred million, and they simply have no concept.

It happens to lottery winners, to athletes, and to some entertainers – especially those who become overnight celebrities.  To the rest of us, it seems strange that someone who has an inordinate amount of money should ever end up in debt and bankrupt, yet, this is a very common path.  Managing large amounts of money is a skill like any other.  It can be learned, but it is takes time.  If your money comes in slowly and your wealth accumulates little by little, your management skills grow apace.  Everything works out.

The same applies in the spiritual realm.  We get a picture of it in type as God promises to give Canaan to the Children of Israel:    I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.  Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land (Exodus 23:29-30). 

The problem the Israelites had was that, though they had been delivered from slavery, they were still slaves in terms of their mindset.  It took time for them to see themselves as the Lord saw them.  Upon encountering the gigantic inhabitants of Canaan, the faithless spies famously said that they were as grasshoppers in the eyes of their enemies, and in their own eyes.   After being beaten down and oppressed for generations, they could not change their minds about who they were and what they were capable of.  They had come out of Egypt in crisis which led to, quite naturally, celebration and vows of commitment, but very few of those so delivered entered into communion.

I believe that conversion is a genuine experience, but, at the same time, I am skeptical of instant Christians – just add water.  Typically, I think we come to a point of crisis where we realize what we are doing isn’t working.  We recognize and embrace the truth of the Gospel.  We commit ourselves to Christ.  The riches of God’s grace and mercy become available to us, and we rejoice.  After a while, though, most of us experience difficulties.  The same old problems confront us.  The same old man too often responds to those problems.  We wonder if we were ever “saved”, or if we need to “rededicate” our lives to Christ.  Maybe it didn’t take the first time.  I have a close relative who used to rededicate about every six months.  I don’t suppose it hurt anything, but I’m not sure it helped anything either.  How many times do you need to cross the Red Sea?  It borders on magical thinking. 

What did Jesus tell us to do in the Great Commission?  Make disciples.  Disciples are those under discipline.  They are learning and developing a new attitude and a new mindset – renewing our minds is the Scriptural phrase, to go with the new nature we have been given.  When people say that we learn to pray, we mean that people learn when to pray and that prayer is listening as much or more than pleading.  We have faith, but we need to develop it and refine it, challenge it and test it in real world situations. 

It takes time.  This is why most people do not die immediately after coming up from the waters of baptism.  A Crisis Christian can immediately or almost immediately become a Committed Christian resulting in a Celebrating Christian.  It doesn’t always happen, but it’s common.  To become a Communion Christian, however, is always going to be a process.  A few of us -- for reasons known only to God, move to that place fairly quickly.  To those watching from the outside, the transition may appear seamless and sudden.  The rest of us take the long way home.  We adapt slowly.  At times it may seem that we are making no progress at all, but we can trust that the Lord is leading by the way that is best.  Some of us take more changing than others, more dying to self than others.  Do not despair or fear.  Little by little, we grow in grace. 

Layers

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

Back in the olden days, I worked for a credit card company pulling data out of massive files for accounting, marketing, risk management or collections.  Most of the time users were interested in aggregate information.  But collectors, of course, were targeting individuals.  I will never forget pulling a list of problem cards and seeing "lottery winner" in the job description of one.

What causes lottery winners and those who suddenly "come into" money to be so susceptible to mismanagement and bankruptcy?  Not having money is very different from having some money.  Anyone who has learned to save has learned to budget.  The budget may not be a formal spreadsheet or log.  I never had one, but I knew I couldn't buy everything at once.  I also never had a credit card until I was well up in my thirties and needed it for travel.

The very fact that a person will blow money on a lottery ticket indicates a certain lack of understanding of basic arithmetic.  I know people who are good at math and have a lot of money who play Powerball and gamble in casinos, but they have a different motivation.  The average consumer, if you will, of Lotto tickets is hoping to hit it big.  In Essays on Political Economy, Bastiat explains:

It was remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect from our savings?"

In other words, they plan on living from paycheck to paycheck, as we say these days.  They have a certain set of skills related to managing money that way.  They aren't good skills, but they are skills.  If such a person is made suddenly wealthy, probably 7 or 8 times out of 10, they will squander their riches because they do not understand capital, investment and earnings. 

This is true of realms other than material wealth.  True education of any sort is built layer upon layer.  Quick fixes and crash courses are ineffective for those with a poor foundation.  We often see college students failing because they were not given a solid foundation in the basics  -- like reading, and they never even learned to learn.

With regard to spiritual truth, the situation is much the same.  We have to, as Jude advised, "build [ourselves] up in [our] most holy faith" by persevering in prayer and other Christian disciplines.  It doesn't have to be a chore, but most of us are not going to have a Damascus Road experience.  Plus, Saul of Tarsus was not turned into Paul the Apostle overnight.  Moses had to spend forty years tending sheep before he could shepherd Israel.  David was pursued by Saul and driven into exile before he returned to rule.  Jesus Himself was 30 years old before He began His ministry and spent forty days fasting in the wilderness to start.

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.  If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? (Luke 16:10-12)

Whatever God entrusts to us, little or much, it is training and testing.  If we take care of it and use it wisely, though it is small and insignificant, we are laying the foundation for a greater blessing to come.

* I see that I touched on this verse and subject in a similar way just a few months back.  I guess it bugs me.

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.