Investing With Confidence

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Lisa Crum

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. - 2 Corinthians 9:6 NIV

Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns. Don't hoard your goods; spread them around. Be a blessing to others. This could be your last night. - Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 THE MESSAGE

Several years ago, shortly after my husband and I got married, we had the opportunity to have dinner with a friend who is a financial planner. Naturally, before the evening was out, we were asking him the type of questions any couple might who’s getting older and barreling toward retirement like a runaway train. Between dinner and dessert, our friend graciously explained to us the difference between investing in mutual funds and stock picking.

Later, when I went to work briefly at a financial advisory firm (as office help, not as an advisor, I might add…my disclaimer being to take this as an object lesson in Christian living and not financial advice!), I learned a little more about the subject…but it pretty much just boils down to this.

Passive investing in a mutual fund or an exchange traded fund is a hands-off approach, where you place money in an indexed pool of investments of a particular kind, managed by a fiduciary who is experienced in investing, and you let it ride over the long haul during good times and bad; the idea being that the good times do outweigh the bad and eventually you come out on top.

Active investing, also known as market timing or playing the stock market, might put you more in charge of calling the buy/sell shots, but often places you in a situation where you’re a day late, and then a dollar short. You see something doing well, you buy stock in it; but by that time, everyone else knows it’s doing well and therefore the value (and the price you’ll have to pay for it) goes up.

You find one of your investments doing poorly, you hurry up and try to sell the stock before it bottoms completely out, and then you wind up losing money because you often must sell it for less than you paid. There are endless reasons argued by pundits on both sides why one or the other is the better method, but like a cheesy slogan I’ve heard on TV about some unknown gadget, it sounded pretty good to me to just “set it and forget it.”

If you can forget it, that is…You know, kingdom work is a lot like financial investing, and there’s a lot to learn from examining the parallels. I don’t know about you, but one of the things which drives me regularly to the cross to ask for forgiveness is my tendency to try to play “stock market” with the love of God.

Jesus chose to invest in a very diverse group of people, and then let His decision rest in the Fiduciary’s hands. Some would serve Him forever, would spread His message into all the earth, and many would even die a martyr’s death in His name. Some, however, He knew might never straighten up and fly right, yet He loved them and was good to them anyway, giving them every opportunity to do right until the very end.

He included a Judas when He ordained the twelve. He healed all ten lepers, knowing only one would remember to come back and give thanks. What Jesus taught us through His example leaves us inexcusable for our finicky, selective doling out of the love of God to people in this mixed up, dying world. He’s telling us to love others as much as we love ourselves…and to love God even more than that (Matthew 22:37-40).

Since He did not give us any footnotes to clearly define which of our “neighbors” might fit that love-your-neighbor commandment, we must take it that He means to love them all! Yep, not just the trusted one next door who lends you his cordless drill when you forget to put yours on charge…but also the one who plays his music way too loud and lets his dog come over to “do its business” on your lawn!

The same goes with family, coworkers, and the like. We’re called to love not just the grandchildren whose voices on the other end of the phone send our heart soaring, but also the co-worker who would lie on us and make us look bad just to advance herself. The outcome may not always be what we wish, but people can’t help but be impacted by the love of God if you’ll dispense it and not sparingly.

Your grandchildren and your co-worker may remember that love for two entirely different reasons, but you can be certain that neither will be in vain, and neither will go unnoticed in heaven. It’s a hard discipline to learn, isn’t it? But it works consistently because Jesus modeled it with perfection.

After mingling with saints, sinners, temple-dwellers, and tax-collectors, He said to His Father regarding those with whom He’d been entrusted, “…not one of them got away, except for the rebel bent on destruction (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).” John 17:12 THE MESSAGE

Know this: your love and prayers perpetuate beyond your earthly life, and the returns on your investment will not be fully realized until you meet some of your “shares” in eternity! Not one ounce of it is wasted, so you can’t afford to write off one single person on your prospectus.

There are always going to be some folk with whom you prefer to surround yourself (as do all of us), but never let it be said that you hoarded up the love of God to use on just those people you thought were most deserving or who are the most likely to become followers of Christ. You’re not the Fiduciary, so instead of analyzing who’s worth the trouble, who will or will not ever change, or who will be the most appreciative, just permit Him to use you as a conduit to make this priceless gift available, as Jesus did, to whosover will.

He’s well able to take care of the rest of the details. “…I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.” - 2 Tim 1:12 NLT

Invest liberally, and with confidence!