And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
Mr. Matthew Pannkuk-Chaplain, Middle School Bible Teacher
God is the Master Investor.
I don’t always trust that all things work together for good. I often think only some things work for good, the things I want to invest my time and energy into. It’s easy to think we know better than God where our resources should go. We doubt the LORD’s investment strategy, where to put our treasures and our precious attention and focus.
I want to invest it in a wife, not friends. I want to put resources into my Personal Satisfaction Account, and not invest in the Getting to Know Others Account, or the Learning Patience Account. No likes putting resources into the Learning Patience Account! And at times I so poor, so drained, so empty, because I keep looking only at the accounts I want full and saw they were quite meager.
After struggling, fighting, kicking, complaining, I finally started to look at the other investments God wanted me to make. I felt afraid to make them sometimes. Like I didn’t want to join a Bible study; I felt it would be awful and awkward if I wasn’t married. Yet it’s been the farthest thing from that! It’s been a huge reward, and such an amazing blessing.
I looked at my Career Account and realized that every single year since 2010, 8 years in a row, the LORD provided a better job than the one I had before. Either new roles within the job I had or a brand new job entirely. Every single year! And this work community is such a close knit family of believers, I feel so loved and like I belong, which I have not felt like very often in my life.
I looked at the empty accounts that I wanted full and thought I was poor, but Jesus was investing resources in accounts I didn’t care about and it turns out I was rich! Christ was investing resources in accounts I didn’t care about but that were helping my overall life/worth/health far more than I could guess. Not rich in my Spouse Mutual Bonds, but looking at the other accounts, I was wealthy.
All of you are, by the way! You may not want resources put into the Perseverance Account, or the Suffering Now So You Can Comfort Others Someday Account, but God is the Master Investor, and knows what He is doing to maximize profits and to make the portfolio of your soul exactly what is best for you.
Quick side-note: One of the best things I’ve learned is it is OK to mourn an empty account, but not to let that ruin your whole life. It’s OK to be sad. It’s OK to still wish God would fill other accounts. It’s OK to still ask your heavenly Father to fill other accounts. We just need to remember that no matter what account you wish was fuller than it is right now, never forget that God has not withheld anything from you. He hasn’t abandoned us, but is doing good things. I’m still rich even when that account I want full is empty.
No matter what account you wish was fuller than it is right now, never forget that as Ephesians 2:7 says we have immeasurable riches through the grace and kindness shown to us through Christ Jesus.
My investment strategy would leave me broke, shattered, alone, poor, and destitute. Thank God he doesn’t allow me to be in charge of where my resources go!
So do you know God as the Master Investor? Do you trust that the Mutual Fund of Perseverance that he just put your last two years of life into will appreciate at a rate that leaves you richer than before? And of course I’m not talking financially, but spiritually. Can you have patience and hope in the God who made the heavens and the earth, the LORD who sent deliverer after deliverer after deliverer as judges to rescue his people, who put Esther in just the right spot as queen to save her people from destruction, who put the most precious commodity in the universe, baby Jesus, into the womb of a lowly teenage girl from Galilee?
The LORD’s investment strategy is going to have the biggest pay day in the history of pay days. And you will be on the receiving end! You will see the fruit of putting your time, talents, and treasures where Christ wants you to put them, even if it seems fruitless for so long.
Let us praise him for his patience, his understanding, his wisdom, his nurturing growth, and deeply trust and firmly believe that where he is having us toil and work and where he is asking us to be faithful even when we see no fruit from it, that his investment strategy will pay off, and we and those around us will experience the immeasurable riches of his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
Twin Oaks Christian School, a ministry of Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church
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