Thursday, August 25, 2016

Making Sense of Greed, Retirement, and being an extraordinary servant


Recently I spent time watching the O.J. Simpson story on ESPN. It is fascinating to me to see the truth, or supposed truth, behind that story. I remember in high school watching it unfold and wanting to believe O.J. was innocent. I wanted to believe that these football players in the public eye were people who were good, caring and so much more. Yet, as often happens with these types of stories, we find out the guys are greedy and selfish instead. The saddest part is that they run out of money toward the end of their life. How in the world could these rich football players run out of money? How could they struggle financially after having these enormous contracts?

Unfortunately, our world and the commercials we see and hear give us a faulty picture of what wealth is like. It is no wonder kids grow up with dreams of being rich. Thankfully, in this day and age, we are more privy to the backstory of the lives of people with wealth. Many times they are exposed for various sins or struggles they find themselves in, and in several cases, we see them go broke due to poor money management and a focus on all the stuff that makes for a good outward appearance. How does this happen? Some of it has to do with athletes and celebrities being so young when they begin making all this money, that they don’t know how to manage it. Other times it is the addiction of getting new stuff to fill their houses or their driveways.

In the real world, we may not find ourselves in the same places as these people, besides sharing a few wishes or dreams here and there. But we do find ourselves trying to figure out what we should save, and when & how to be generous.

Recently, I have had many conversations about retirement.  If you think about it, there are a lot of commercials about it. Culturally, there seems to be a drive to focus on retirement, from the fun we want to have in retirement to the money we should have saved in the bank. I am not sure what the balance is, but I am certainly fearful of missing out on the life we are blessed with right now because of our focus on retirement. And what about those that die tragically and completely miss retirement, or those that suffer with disease and illness? Sometimes when people do get to retirement, they are disappointed that it doesn’t live up to their expectations.

Jesus was hitting on all of this as He talked about greed in our lesson for today in Luke 12. Greed can come at us from many different directions; it is not just the famous athlete or celebrity that is going to struggle. The reality check for us comes when we read about the guy in the parable that looks for the time where he can just sit back and take it easy. Sound familiar?

God has called us to be His extraordinary servants in our unique ways, and that never quits, no matter what stage of life we are in. It may be readjusted or altered, but there certainly is not a point when all our grain bins are full and we just sit back and let life pass us by. Plus, why would we want that if God has gifted us to serve Him? Jesus was teaching about a dangerous sin and helping us to see how we can fall into it as well. But thanks to His grace, we are forgiven, and through His teachings and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can get molded and shaped to serve Him our whole lives.

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