The sermon passage in Mathew 6:19 states, “ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, etc..” Over the past weeks and months, the Lord has been working with me on this spiritual truism. Further, he sent Bro. Jerry to bring the word of wisdom to spiritually body slam me last Sunday.
Let me explain. For over 27 years, I have been saving money for my retirement. Truthfully, how many 23 year olds do you know who start planning for the “golden years” at such an early age? I was certain that “delayed gratification” would pay off. Somehow, I convinced myself that there was even a spiritual component in the path that I had taken. Perhaps, even a cogent argument of the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30 & Luke 19:12-28 could be used to support being worthy stewards of what the Lord has provided us with.
When I was a youngster, my Dad made it perfectly clear to me that I was expected to be “off the family payroll” as soon as possible. Further, it was up to me to “lay by in store” for the future to take care of myself and my immediate family. I started my humble saving plans with $25 per month. The financial representative dutifully explained the concepts of “Dollar cost averaging and Compounding Interest.” I was assured that time was on my side, and that all would be fine. Every year, I would continue increasing the amount saved and was resolute and steadfast in following “the plan.” To make a long story short, now that I am getting close to having 30 years in the school district and preparing to retire, I started looking at the figures more closely. I suppose I started studying the figures last year. I was so proud of what I had done, and yes, I was even sanctimonious. After all, I was not like all of those “sinners” who had not planned for the future. Mmm , does the word pharisaical sound right….I think so.
In retrospect, I see my faith was in my annuity. Well, the Lord saw fit to teach me a lesson that my faith was in the wrong thing. Continuing, I believe that the Lord is teaching our country a lesson about materialism! (He has certainly taught it to me.) Sadly, I thought that my “long term dollar cost averaging” saving strategy over 25 years was practicing what the Lord teaches in Matt 7:25: “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not collapse because its foundation was on the rock.” I guess that is what thought; it seemed wise, disciplined and somehow “spiritual.” Again, I say my faith was the wrong thing. Since Sept. 08, I have lost over half of my “nest egg;” my faith was placed in things that the Lord can take away as quickly as he gave it. The scary part about this whole situation is I thought that I was building my house on the “rock” and it turned out to be the “sand.”
I wonder how many of us believe that our spiritual houses are built on rock when, in fact, these houses are on sand.
Just my thoughts…..Jeff
3 comments:
Hey Uncle Jeff! Really good thoughts. It encourages me that in any phase of life, we are ALL learning &, hopefully, growing from our experiences. It's ironic to me that with the state of the present economy, it makes me (and many others I am sure) want to hold on even tighter to our financial "security". Ha!
good stuff dad - kind of reminds me how the whole "hope is not a plan" mindset will only take me so far.....at some point I just have to live each day in trust that God is working in my life for the best.....
This is very thought provoking! It's good to think ahead and plan but in the end, the Lord's plan will prevail and it might not be identical to yours. He'll provide for our needs though so that's comforting. :-) You always told me that I should keep the important things, the important things. We all probably need a lesson in prioritizing! Love you@
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