Avoiding Bankruptcy on the Wheel of Fortune® Part I
I am not all that old, but for as long as I can remember there has been a game show on TV called Wheel of Fortune. I had not watched it for years, but this fall I have caught it a few times in the evening when I have been sitting with my hospice patient over in Our little Town. (Describe the game.) You all have probably seen this game show sometime in your lives, maybe you are a regular watcher. Since I am not, I was kind of surprised at some of the innovations and enhancements they have made to the game this season. The panels on the wheel light up, and I am not absolutely sure, but I think they are like monitor displays that can automatically change their read out from one round of the game to the next. There are a couple of things to watch out for in this game when you spin the wheel. If the wheel stops on Lose a turn than you lose your turn and play moves on to the next player, but the really bad one is if you land on bankruptcy. Then you lose whatever cash or prizes you have accumulated for that round of the game and lose your turn.
Life can be like this. Things may be going along fine as far as you can tell, your taking care of your everyday business, minding your own business, and then, whammy something comes along and cuts you off at the knees and you do not know what hit you. This can happen whether you are someone that calls yourself a Christian or not.
When I was in my second and third years of working for EDS, I kind of had, not just one round of landing on Bankruptcy, but several in different areas of my life. I was working long days, commuting 60 or 70 miles away from home for work. I was a leader at work, and working in an environment where we supported our customers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. If some one on my team was working the night shift, 8 PM – 7 AM during the week or 8 PM – 9 AM on weekends and they were sick or just had vacation time then I had to cover it. A few times that meant I worked my regular shift from 9 AM to 6 PM had two hours off of work and then worked the night shift from 8 PM to 7 AM. What is that 20 out of 24 hours in a given day. Then one day I came home from work and Jayleigh told me that if things did not change and change in a big way very soon when it came to making our home life and our marriage relationship a high priority that she was going to have to leave. In other words, our marriage was on the verge of going bankrupt.
Let’s leave that for a moment. And look at another facet of my life at that time. In May of that year, 1999, if I remember correctly, I had been at annual conference for the UMC and felt a strong sense of God calling me into the ministry. Jayleigh and I had discussed it and decided before I scrapped everything and went off to seminary, that I should perhaps try becoming more involved in our home church as a lay person and leader in the church, you know, just to see how things work out. So I had begun to work more on that over the course of the year, working with the Sunday school, VBS, PPRC, Trustees, coming to Ad Board. But even as I was showing some growth in that area, there was another area of my faith life, my walk with Jesus that was not growing. Stewardship.
I was earning more than I ever had in my business job and Jayleigh was working too adding income to our household, yet when it came to our offering at church we would only put in what was left over after we had our fun and paid some of our bills. Sometimes it might have even appeared to be a respectable amount of offering, but it really wasn’t because it was not being given in the right spirit. If we truly believe that God is the author and creator of everything that we have in our lives than it should not be too much for God to expect that we would make giving a tithe of the first ten percent of what has come to us from God back to him through God’s church, but I was not doing that. My stewardship life was bankrupt.
Honestly at this time, I was not managing any of my finances properly and bills were not getting paid on time or in the correct amount and creditors were calling all the time demanding payment. So my financial life in whole was on the verge of bankruptcy as well.
Also around this same time, I was having more and more trouble with my eyes bothering me, getting fatigued, and my jaws were causing me severe pain, because they were severely out of alignment. I had an obvious under-bite and because my teeth and jaws did not line up properly the muscles on the joint would cramp, ache, and sometimes throb with pain. I was only 29, but I was beginning to feel like my health was going bankrupt.
What does bankrupt mean? On dictionary.com the second definition of the term bankrupt, used as a noun is this, “any insolvent debtor; a person unable to satisfy any just claims made upon him or her.” And the third when used as an adjective is this, “a person who is lacking in a particular thing or quality: a moral bankrupt.”
So here I was, I had experienced a spiritual calling to the ministry from God. I was going to church and serving the church in many different ways. At work I was climbing the corporate ladder and earning bonuses and salary increases. On the surface everything appeared to be OK, probably to some my life probably appeared to be not just good, but great. The reality though was that I was bankrupt. I was bankrupt in my marriage, in my health, in my finances, and in my stewardship. It might not seem like it, but the stewardship was a major key. Stewardship is part of our lives of faith as Christians. My faith was shallow, my claim of being a Christian was nearly empty.
I was lacking faith and when it came to the things that God demanded of me or to keeping what Jesus said were the greatest commandments, to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself, I was truly bankrupt. I was unable to satisfy any just claim made upon me, by my wife, by the companies that I owed money too, and most of all claims made upon me by God.
I wish that I had studied the book of Haggai at that time in my life. Haggai wrote one of the shorter books of the bible. It is only two chapters long. There are no great plagues, there are no great wars, and honestly there are no great acts of God described in the book of Haggai, but it still carries a very important message. That message is about faith. It is a message about making God a priority in your life instead of putting him on the back burner.
It is 20 years after the people of Israel were freed and returned from exile in Babylon back to their native country. The excitement of those first days, months, or even years of being home again have warn off. The people have fallen into the drudgery of life and life is not horrible, but it is not going too well.
When they first returned from exile the people were excited about learning about their God as they had not been able to do for those many years that they were held captive in that foreign land. They wanted to hear God’s word and they wanted to answer the call to serve him. The city of Jerusalem had been sacked and the Temple of Solomon had been not just destroyed but also desecrated. God called the people to build a new temple for him and the people made an attempt to begin a new temple…but then life started to get in the way. The people were more concerned with building their own houses, planting, tending, and harvesting their own fields and flocks. They had lots of business to take care of in order to re-establish their lives. When it came time to work on a temple or even worship God and listen to what he had called them to do, they were too busy, they were too tired. They needed to take a break and have a day of rest for themselves.
What does God do? He does not send another plague. He does not send another conquering army. No, he sends Haggai the prophet, with a message for the people. If you read Haggai from the beginning, Haggai, states to the people of Israel in Haggai 1:4-6.
These people are bankrupt. These people are unable to satisfy the just claim that had been made on them by God. And why is that, because these people are lacking in a particular quality. And that quality is what? That quality is faith. That quality is true deep-seated, heartfelt, head-thought faith backed up by all of their strength!
Boy, I wish I had read this in the fall of 1999!
God’s message continues, in verses 1:7-11.
I did not read this and learn this lesson in 1999, but I did know something at that time. I knew that I needed to change my priorities around if I wanted to work with Jayleigh to save our marriage and if I wanted to regain my health, and if I wanted to straighten out our financial situation. I remembered things that I had been taught over the years growing up in church and Sunday school. I remembered scriptures like Exodus 23:16 “Celebrate the Feast of the Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. In verse 19 “Bring the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.” I remembered what I learned as a young adult in the Christian church about tithing not just treasure, but time and talent as well.
And still looking in Exodus what does God promise to do for the faithful that give him their firstfruits? Beginning with verse 20 from the NIV, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. “ Now back to Haggai, what does God promise to do when the people decide to put their faith in him instead of in their own works? When they decide to work for God instead of just working for themselves, what does God promise?
Life can be like this. Things may be going along fine as far as you can tell, your taking care of your everyday business, minding your own business, and then, whammy something comes along and cuts you off at the knees and you do not know what hit you. This can happen whether you are someone that calls yourself a Christian or not.
When I was in my second and third years of working for EDS, I kind of had, not just one round of landing on Bankruptcy, but several in different areas of my life. I was working long days, commuting 60 or 70 miles away from home for work. I was a leader at work, and working in an environment where we supported our customers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. If some one on my team was working the night shift, 8 PM – 7 AM during the week or 8 PM – 9 AM on weekends and they were sick or just had vacation time then I had to cover it. A few times that meant I worked my regular shift from 9 AM to 6 PM had two hours off of work and then worked the night shift from 8 PM to 7 AM. What is that 20 out of 24 hours in a given day. Then one day I came home from work and Jayleigh told me that if things did not change and change in a big way very soon when it came to making our home life and our marriage relationship a high priority that she was going to have to leave. In other words, our marriage was on the verge of going bankrupt.
Let’s leave that for a moment. And look at another facet of my life at that time. In May of that year, 1999, if I remember correctly, I had been at annual conference for the UMC and felt a strong sense of God calling me into the ministry. Jayleigh and I had discussed it and decided before I scrapped everything and went off to seminary, that I should perhaps try becoming more involved in our home church as a lay person and leader in the church, you know, just to see how things work out. So I had begun to work more on that over the course of the year, working with the Sunday school, VBS, PPRC, Trustees, coming to Ad Board. But even as I was showing some growth in that area, there was another area of my faith life, my walk with Jesus that was not growing. Stewardship.
I was earning more than I ever had in my business job and Jayleigh was working too adding income to our household, yet when it came to our offering at church we would only put in what was left over after we had our fun and paid some of our bills. Sometimes it might have even appeared to be a respectable amount of offering, but it really wasn’t because it was not being given in the right spirit. If we truly believe that God is the author and creator of everything that we have in our lives than it should not be too much for God to expect that we would make giving a tithe of the first ten percent of what has come to us from God back to him through God’s church, but I was not doing that. My stewardship life was bankrupt.
Honestly at this time, I was not managing any of my finances properly and bills were not getting paid on time or in the correct amount and creditors were calling all the time demanding payment. So my financial life in whole was on the verge of bankruptcy as well.
Also around this same time, I was having more and more trouble with my eyes bothering me, getting fatigued, and my jaws were causing me severe pain, because they were severely out of alignment. I had an obvious under-bite and because my teeth and jaws did not line up properly the muscles on the joint would cramp, ache, and sometimes throb with pain. I was only 29, but I was beginning to feel like my health was going bankrupt.
What does bankrupt mean? On dictionary.com the second definition of the term bankrupt, used as a noun is this, “any insolvent debtor; a person unable to satisfy any just claims made upon him or her.” And the third when used as an adjective is this, “a person who is lacking in a particular thing or quality: a moral bankrupt.”
So here I was, I had experienced a spiritual calling to the ministry from God. I was going to church and serving the church in many different ways. At work I was climbing the corporate ladder and earning bonuses and salary increases. On the surface everything appeared to be OK, probably to some my life probably appeared to be not just good, but great. The reality though was that I was bankrupt. I was bankrupt in my marriage, in my health, in my finances, and in my stewardship. It might not seem like it, but the stewardship was a major key. Stewardship is part of our lives of faith as Christians. My faith was shallow, my claim of being a Christian was nearly empty.
I was lacking faith and when it came to the things that God demanded of me or to keeping what Jesus said were the greatest commandments, to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself, I was truly bankrupt. I was unable to satisfy any just claim made upon me, by my wife, by the companies that I owed money too, and most of all claims made upon me by God.
I wish that I had studied the book of Haggai at that time in my life. Haggai wrote one of the shorter books of the bible. It is only two chapters long. There are no great plagues, there are no great wars, and honestly there are no great acts of God described in the book of Haggai, but it still carries a very important message. That message is about faith. It is a message about making God a priority in your life instead of putting him on the back burner.
It is 20 years after the people of Israel were freed and returned from exile in Babylon back to their native country. The excitement of those first days, months, or even years of being home again have warn off. The people have fallen into the drudgery of life and life is not horrible, but it is not going too well.
When they first returned from exile the people were excited about learning about their God as they had not been able to do for those many years that they were held captive in that foreign land. They wanted to hear God’s word and they wanted to answer the call to serve him. The city of Jerusalem had been sacked and the Temple of Solomon had been not just destroyed but also desecrated. God called the people to build a new temple for him and the people made an attempt to begin a new temple…but then life started to get in the way. The people were more concerned with building their own houses, planting, tending, and harvesting their own fields and flocks. They had lots of business to take care of in order to re-establish their lives. When it came time to work on a temple or even worship God and listen to what he had called them to do, they were too busy, they were too tired. They needed to take a break and have a day of rest for themselves.
What does God do? He does not send another plague. He does not send another conquering army. No, he sends Haggai the prophet, with a message for the people. If you read Haggai from the beginning, Haggai, states to the people of Israel in Haggai 1:4-6.
These people are bankrupt. These people are unable to satisfy the just claim that had been made on them by God. And why is that, because these people are lacking in a particular quality. And that quality is what? That quality is faith. That quality is true deep-seated, heartfelt, head-thought faith backed up by all of their strength!
Boy, I wish I had read this in the fall of 1999!
God’s message continues, in verses 1:7-11.
I did not read this and learn this lesson in 1999, but I did know something at that time. I knew that I needed to change my priorities around if I wanted to work with Jayleigh to save our marriage and if I wanted to regain my health, and if I wanted to straighten out our financial situation. I remembered things that I had been taught over the years growing up in church and Sunday school. I remembered scriptures like Exodus 23:16 “Celebrate the Feast of the Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. In verse 19 “Bring the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.” I remembered what I learned as a young adult in the Christian church about tithing not just treasure, but time and talent as well.
And still looking in Exodus what does God promise to do for the faithful that give him their firstfruits? Beginning with verse 20 from the NIV, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. “ Now back to Haggai, what does God promise to do when the people decide to put their faith in him instead of in their own works? When they decide to work for God instead of just working for themselves, what does God promise?
posted by Robert C. Howell at
5:47 PM
