Today we met with our banker to discuss our investment portfolio. Our conversation was riddled with words like risk, return, retirement projection, gains, and losses. We're a couple safer with little risk even if little continues to describe our returns. Better to gain less than lose more, that's our thinking anyway. Turns out though some of my funds weren't well invested by our personal financial adviser and even with minimal risk I've had losses in three of them for five consecutive years.
How could our adviser be aware of this and not tell me? How is it ok to him for me to continue to bleed well earned money? What logical reason was there for me to stay the course instead of firing him and hiring more competent management, one that protects my investments for a greater return?
Our banker advised us to plan well, save more or we might find our golden years our poorest, the years of profiting from the work of our hands reduced to just getting by. Certainly we didn't intend to live as paupers, surely our dream was the American one: to live as royalty, living out the sunset years being waited on hand and foot.
This past Sunday we had K.P. Yohannan, the well known author of Revolution in World Missions, speak at our church. He too talked about loss and risk and returns. Even retirement projection (though he might not have used the exact term). While our finances were one aspect of his sermon, the greater challenge was in regards to the investment of our lives.
What sort of risk were we willing to make to bring the good news to a lost world? What sort of return did we expect if we kept these little lights of ours holed up in the safe comforts of our suburbia?
K.P. told of a young native missionary of India, one who felt a call by God to minister to a northern village where the majority were Muslims. K.P. himself had been to this village and was severely beaten and left in an alley by people who had no desire for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The young missionary himself had been roughed up and one day received a final ultimatum: leave this village or we'll have to kill you.
The young man, afraid for his life, left immediately and returned to the safety and refuge of other believers. His fellow missionaries encouraged him and questioned him, "Are you sure that Jesus sent you there? Really, really sure?" The young man insisted that he had, though so uncertain as to the course of his next actions seeing that the village had officially not received any divine instructions about how to receive a man of God!
His counselors advised him to remain obedient to his calling, what was the worst that could happen? Return to be killed and then heaven, he could wait for them all there.
"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it dies it brings forth much fruit."
The missionary returned to a bewildered village; the men there demanded to know why he would force them to become murderers.
In answer to their why, his life spoke of his great love for them and for their souls and of his willingness to invest all he had in hopes for an eternal return.
Years later K.P. visited this man in this village and after the church service, shook hands with parishioners who were the very ones who had threatened the young missionary.
A lifetime invested for everlasting gain.
Another story was of a mother who, like millions more, made her pilgrimage to the Ganges River in hopes of having her sins washed away in it's filthy waters and for a reversal of misfortune for her husband. So desperate was her state, she had just given her 6 month old baby as a sacrifice to the god Ganges as proof of her faith.
Wholehearted investment for an uncertain return.
When told of the love of Jesus who had already bore the penalty for her sins, her sorrow only increased. Though she believed, her sacrifice was finally understood to have been in vain. "If only you had come moments sooner", was her broken cry.
How could I be aware of such spiritual ignorance and not have a greater desire to advise others of the Truth? How is it ok for me to continue to fritter away provision granted me by God when so many do not know He bled for them? What logical reason is there for me to stay the course of securing temporal lucrative returns when there remains a harvest that is only gained when people are willing to die daily to themselves, to lose everything for the sake of Christ?
I thought about my golden years later this afternoon, about the possibility that in the future my day might hold nothing more than any pursuit of my passing pleasure. Living as a princess in my terrestrial palace, storing trinkets that would be mine but for moments.
Refusing to loose my grip on rusting metals, losing everything that was meant for the eternal.
A princess upon a porcelain throne when I was made for an enduring crown.
