Moths (by Nate)

I spent a little time figuring out what to do with some of our HSA money yesterday. An HSA is a savings account for our health care money and acts a little like a retirement account. No, I’m not planning on retiring soon- I believe Rachael and I could keep up our pace of life for as long as we’re healthy!

So I was looking at the different areas that you can invest HSA money in– stocks, bonds, mutual funds, rare coins, cd’s, and savings accounts. And I promptly decided that none of them is really worth spending much of my time on. Let’s say I put $2000 from our HSA that we won’t need for at least 2 years in some mutual funds that average 8%, I might make $350 in the next 2 years off of that investment. That could be a good deal if it only takes me 30 minutes to pick a low-fee, good-return mutual fund. But if I spent 20 minutes a day for 50 days a year for the next two years, because I worry about it losing value and whether or not I should sell the fund, then my return on my time goes from $700/hr to $9/hr.

I’m not making investment advice here or even claiming I know how to make $700/hr. What I do want to point out is the power of focusing on what’s important vs. being distracted by worry.

A famous guy named Jesus once said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” This well-known verse is taken from Jesus’ sermon on the mount (it sounds better than ‘hill’) along with, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Often these two statements get subdivided into separate sermons, conversations, or arguments. But they were delivered as part of one big piece of communication that Jesus gave when he saw a large crowd and sat down to talk to his followers. Since that time a lot of people have spent years speculating about all the implications of this one speech, and I hope that I spend a lot of time over the rest of my life trying to wrap my mind and heart around what he said.

Today my thoughts on this passage look a little like this:

• Jesus was big on storing up treasure in heaven, not on earth

• “Storing up treasure” sounds a lot like investing to me

• Earth= bad place to invest because of moth, rust, and thieves

• Heaven= good place to invest because it puts your heart in the right place

• Investing can lead to worry, even if it’s just what to eat or wear

• Worry doesn’t add a single hour to your life- it’s more likely to subtract hours

• This stuff sounds great, but what do I do now?

Jesus addressed this with another well-known phrase in the same lesson, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

I think what I’ve incorporated into my life from Jesus’ teachings are these things:

1. God’s Kingdom and His righteousness are first.

   On a daily level, this gets played out every morning when I wake up and take the dog out, praying for the day ahead that I would seek these things first. Which then leads to reading the Bible and more prayer with Rachael. Then I have to exercise my faith that these things (food & clothing) will be given to me throughout the rest of the day. I thank my parents for modeling this from an early age!

2. I don’t have to worry about tomorrow or what I eat or drink.

   This frees me up to plan without worrying! Planning is proactive, but worrying is reactive. I think that when I plan my time well, I keep seeking God’s Kingdom first. In order to store up anything, which Jesus says to do with treasure in heaven, you have to be producing something to store and then have a plan to not expend it all as soon as you produce it. I try to spend the first moments of each day (after the stuff I already said I do) planning how to spend the rest of my waking moments. One guy I’ve flown for does this as far out as 2, 5, and 10 years to make sure he’s going in the right direction. John Maxwell, leadership guru, plans out his entire year during a little planning session at the beginning of each new year. I hope to become an expert planner during my lifetime!

3. My treasure, and therefore my heart, will be stored up in heaven.

   I can go about the things of life, knowing that they are only temporary and that it can all be eaten by moths, get rusty, or be stolen by others. I am free to invest my time, energy, and money in people and projects that I think will help me to store up treasure in heaven!

Right now our focus is on Guatemala. God is moving through our church, through Buckner, and most recently us, to take care of these boys in Central America. We are invested in connecting our community at Maryland with the Kingdom moving work in Guatemala. It’s almost a daily struggle with worry to stay focused on God and how he’s moving rather than to try to make everything line up by our strength or with the little money we have.

Let me encourage you with this, since you’ve made it this far: God makes good promises and he’s got a phenomenal record of following through on them. Jesus said that if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness that all the other things will be given to you. This is truth and not just some words on a page. May you exercise faith and invest your life fully focused on Jesus- His Kingdom and His Righteousness!

Recession? (by Nate)

Our church is holding a Dave Ramsey: Town Hall for Hope meeting on Thursday, and I’m definitely excited to see what kind of things he has to say about the role of the church in our current situation. Headlines are gushing with jobs lost and bailouts in progress. Pessimists have their heads in the ground and optimists have their heads in the clouds. Is there anything between doomsday fearmongering and unsubstantiated hope in our economy?

I think Jesus would say, “Of course, you silly sheep.”

I was reading the book of 1 John in the New Testament and, as I’ve come to expect, a bit of truth popped up from the page and bear-hugged me. In the fourth chapter John spends a good chunk of his words trying to get across how loving God is. God is the source of love (vs 7), God is love (8), and God showed us love by sending his son into the world so that we might live through him (9). After that in verse 18 he says,

¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

And I started thinking about the fear constantly portrayed in the media, the same fear that has propelled the government to make some fairly rash decisions that will greatly affect the wealth of my generation. This is the same fear that has people stretching their oil changes on their cars and eating out less often. It comes out in layoffs as well as huge executive bonuses.

This is may be a healthy fear. John says that fear has to do with punishment and there seems to be an abundance of punishable behavior going on in the world.

But what about Christians? Self-proclaimed followers of Christ who are living as ambassadors of heaven here on earth should be holding out the truth, which I think looks a little like this:

God is love.

Love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

Human beings deserve punishment when they do wrong.

God is the judge of what’s right and wrong, as well as the punisher.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and get punished.

If we confess our sins, he is just and will forgive us our sins and purify us.

This is way more important for all the hopeless, jobless, fearful people of the world to hear than that the government is going to spend our way out of the current mess. I’ve heard it said that greed is not wanting money, but expecting money to solve your problems.

If we’ve misused our money, time, resources, there will be punishment.

BUT the good news is that God is bigger than the creditors, the government, and all our problems and he loves us passionately. If we admit that we are screwed up, believe that he can and wants to save us, and then commit to following him as he leads for the rest of our lives, then we live a life of love and fear is driven out! But more importantly, we live a life of love- I can’t think of anything more fulfilling than that.

I Feel Sick (Rachael)

If you happened to read any of our blog posts from when we were in Guatemala, you already know that our week there was amazing.  It was so amazing, in fact, that we’re already making plans to go back in June.

 

However, what we didn’t mention in our posts was that the weeks had a few ups and downs.  Some highs and lows. And some stops and gos…on the road, that is.

 

And I felt sick.

 

Thankfully, I didn’t throw up (although, if I needed to, I had a plan.  I had an unobstructed path to the door and window and I intended to run to them, full speed ahead, if the opportunity presented itself).   But there were times when I thought I might lose it.  Other times, I’d sit in my front seat, staring out the window, hoping and praying the ride would soon be over or that I’d pass out from exhaustion and sleep through the rest of the ride. 

 

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve had trouble on the road or in the air.  I have a tough time flying with Nate, but he swears it’s a mental thing, so he does his best to—quite literally—talk me out of it.  And, I’ve had problems on our other trips in Guatemala.  I can deal with it.  But I’d rather not.  

 

So, I need your help.  A few people have suggested Ginger candy.  Do you think that would help?  What do you do when you’re motion sick?  What should I try?