Your Best Investment

A commentary by Stefan S.

It's one thing to lose your money when it's your own fault, like gambling, drinking or excessive shopping.

However, suppose your life savings crumbles before your eyes when it's not your fault. Maybe a banker you've never met gambled your money on Wall Street—and lost. How would you react to that?

Financial ways

We can learn in many ways from the current financial crisis…

• Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
• Only buy necessary things.
• Avoid credit card debt.

Apart from such classic advice, it's clear that financial bubbles arise when investors overvalue things, mainly due to greed. After centuries of financial markets building up, crashing, rebuilding and crashing again, we should somehow come to realize that the markets are dynamic in nature and increasingly intertwined beyond what most can grasp.

Generational ways

We—especially the generations born in the 1980s and '90s—have to be prepared for times of less financial prosperity, even dire hard times. After growing up during some unusually prosperous years—compared to all previous generations—have we taken our blessings for granted?

Previous generations lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and experienced the rationing of supplies during World War II. They know that just because everything is going relatively smoothly now doesn't mean it cannot soon change for the worse, and when it does, people must stand prepared to help each other.

Most of us can act on Solomon's advice to cast our bread upon the waters, so that we will find it after many days (Ecclesiastes 11:1). That is, to act generously toward people around us, for somewhere in the future we might find ourselves in need of help.

Life's ways

Hopefully the value of a crisis like this is that more people will realize that the things one has and the money one earns do not constitute one's life.

Naturally, money is necessary for us all to buy food, clothes and a place to live. It's sometimes needed even in order to make a living. But money and things are just the results of our labor; they must not be the goals of our lives.

After all, Jesus said one cannot be the servant of both God and mammon (money). He said that we should not worry about our material needs. If we first seek God's Kingdom and His righteousness, such things will follow (Matthew 6:24, 33).

The way of wisdom

God takes an interest in our reactions to all the problems we encounter. He is most interested in our overcoming problems by enduring life's crises with faith and perseverance.

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom (personified as a woman) seems to be everywhere, crying aloud. But fools do not want to hear her, so when calamity comes she is no longer there to give her precious counsel. In fact she's only there to laugh and mock because people wouldn't listen and turn in the first place (Proverbs 1:20-26).

Chances are that wisdom isn't far from us today crying out her advice. However, we are free to make that age-old mistake of ignoring her.

Biblical wisdom is never a bad thing or something to be brushed aside. Its only cost is a little of our time. Cut your losses today and invest in wisdom—read the Bible!

Why not invest a few minutes now? Read "Ecclesiastes: The Thinking Young Adult's Guide to Life." VT