“It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.”
- Bono
Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ve heard of the economic crisis our country is currently going through. It seems all the big name financial services companies were well on their way down the tube. Of course that was until the current administration and its advisors decided that a 700 billion dollar bailout might save our economy from taking a nose dive into a depression. While this 700 billion dollar “rescue plan”—as it is now being called—has not yet passed through congress, some sort of extremely expensive bailout is likely. I think it averages out to over 2,000 some odd dollars per tax payer. Now, I’m nowhere near a professional economist, so for me to say whether or not the bailout is a sound economic idea is simply above my pay grade. Still, I think Bono has made a good point here. Prior to the chaos related to this economic debacle our economy was already going through ruff times. I heard non-stop talk about the country’s massive debt and the excessive cost of this administration’s plans and policies. But low and behold, we had 700 billion dollars we could spend to save our economy and rescue our nation and from possible economic ruin.
So what’s the lesson here, well for one it’s amazing what we can find when we really need too. But seriously, as I thought about Bono’s quote I thought about how I handle my own finances. Anytime I’m in need or there’s something I really want, I always find a way to either get it, or find the faith that God will provide, and that’s good. But do I find that same sort of zeal when someone else is in need? The answer is certainly not as much as I’d like. I can find 4.00 dollars to get something at Starbucks when I’m broke, but can’t seem to find the time and money to adequately help those to whom 4.00 bucks means the difference between eating or not eating, life or death. When a missionary is raising support to go serve among the unreached, forgotten peoples of the world, do I search for money the same way I would if I was trying to get a new X-box, or go on a road trip with friends. I can’t say I do.
Jesus said “do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” For the 25 to 30,000 children who die every day of well known preventable diseases and poverty related issues, we as a nation can’t seem to find the political capital to scrape up the necessary 3% of the 700 billion dollar government bailout which congress is now considering (Despite popular opinion we actually spend less than .2%, not 2%, of our GNP on foreign aid, one of the lowest percentages among developed nations. Most goes to places where we have military involvement or interest, and less than .1%, not 1%, goes to purely humanitarian aid in the places that need it. Additionally, we spend thirty times more on military expenditures than on foreign aid based on figures before the Iraq War).
As disappointing as these figures may be, if I break down the percentages of what I spend in my own life, I’m afraid I’ll find a similar pattern. Jesus said in Luke 12:34 that “where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” In other word’s you can tell what a person really loves by where they spend their money. Where do you spend your money? The two greatest commandments Jesus gave are to Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is first and foremost a matter of the heart, but it overflows into the way we live our lives. Matthew 15:19 states that out of our heart come evil thoughts and actions, murders, adulteries, lies and the like. Thus, we can tell if we love someone by how we treat them and we can tell what we love in our hearts by what we spend our money on. If we take this understanding and measure our lives by it, then clearly we as a nation need a heart change, and more than likely we as individuals need the same. We need the grace that changes hearts and the faith that changes actions.
Lord, touch our hearts and soften them, may your Holy Spirit help us to Love you and to Love others. For love that doesn’t act, isn’t really love at all. Help us to be obedient to your will and to “do unto others” as we would have them do to us, moreover let us do onto others as we do for ourselves. Lastly, God change the way we spend our money, I pray that you would get down to the heart of the matter.
- Bono
Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ve heard of the economic crisis our country is currently going through. It seems all the big name financial services companies were well on their way down the tube. Of course that was until the current administration and its advisors decided that a 700 billion dollar bailout might save our economy from taking a nose dive into a depression. While this 700 billion dollar “rescue plan”—as it is now being called—has not yet passed through congress, some sort of extremely expensive bailout is likely. I think it averages out to over 2,000 some odd dollars per tax payer. Now, I’m nowhere near a professional economist, so for me to say whether or not the bailout is a sound economic idea is simply above my pay grade. Still, I think Bono has made a good point here. Prior to the chaos related to this economic debacle our economy was already going through ruff times. I heard non-stop talk about the country’s massive debt and the excessive cost of this administration’s plans and policies. But low and behold, we had 700 billion dollars we could spend to save our economy and rescue our nation and from possible economic ruin.
So what’s the lesson here, well for one it’s amazing what we can find when we really need too. But seriously, as I thought about Bono’s quote I thought about how I handle my own finances. Anytime I’m in need or there’s something I really want, I always find a way to either get it, or find the faith that God will provide, and that’s good. But do I find that same sort of zeal when someone else is in need? The answer is certainly not as much as I’d like. I can find 4.00 dollars to get something at Starbucks when I’m broke, but can’t seem to find the time and money to adequately help those to whom 4.00 bucks means the difference between eating or not eating, life or death. When a missionary is raising support to go serve among the unreached, forgotten peoples of the world, do I search for money the same way I would if I was trying to get a new X-box, or go on a road trip with friends. I can’t say I do.
Jesus said “do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” For the 25 to 30,000 children who die every day of well known preventable diseases and poverty related issues, we as a nation can’t seem to find the political capital to scrape up the necessary 3% of the 700 billion dollar government bailout which congress is now considering (Despite popular opinion we actually spend less than .2%, not 2%, of our GNP on foreign aid, one of the lowest percentages among developed nations. Most goes to places where we have military involvement or interest, and less than .1%, not 1%, goes to purely humanitarian aid in the places that need it. Additionally, we spend thirty times more on military expenditures than on foreign aid based on figures before the Iraq War).
As disappointing as these figures may be, if I break down the percentages of what I spend in my own life, I’m afraid I’ll find a similar pattern. Jesus said in Luke 12:34 that “where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” In other word’s you can tell what a person really loves by where they spend their money. Where do you spend your money? The two greatest commandments Jesus gave are to Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is first and foremost a matter of the heart, but it overflows into the way we live our lives. Matthew 15:19 states that out of our heart come evil thoughts and actions, murders, adulteries, lies and the like. Thus, we can tell if we love someone by how we treat them and we can tell what we love in our hearts by what we spend our money on. If we take this understanding and measure our lives by it, then clearly we as a nation need a heart change, and more than likely we as individuals need the same. We need the grace that changes hearts and the faith that changes actions.
Lord, touch our hearts and soften them, may your Holy Spirit help us to Love you and to Love others. For love that doesn’t act, isn’t really love at all. Help us to be obedient to your will and to “do unto others” as we would have them do to us, moreover let us do onto others as we do for ourselves. Lastly, God change the way we spend our money, I pray that you would get down to the heart of the matter.
6 comments:
wow, you really hit it well on this one. money has always been a sensitive issue, even more so now.
there is hardly anything that so radically and quickly exposes priorities as use of money. i feel as though our abundant possessions are crying out condemnation against us...Lord, help us be good stewards.
do you have references for those stats you listed? i'd love to follow up on them.
thanks danny, I do have some references, I'll email them to you, I ran across some of them while reading Jeffery Sachs's book The End of Poverty, I also looked some of them up on ngo websites.
Akele, have you read The Good of Affluence?
It's a book on wealth creation and theology. I'm working my way through it, slowly.
thought you might find it interesting.
I have not read the good of affluence but it sounds like something I would be very interested in, I know a minister/lawyer in Atlanta who travels and teaches on ministry in the marketplace and the creation of wealth to promote the ministry of the gospel. I will check it out.
Akele, you were right to bring up how complicated the issue of an economic bailout really is. The people who seem to know what is actually going on are also the ones who work on Wallstreet... so it gets confusing.
However, once in a while, Bono says something really smart. He stumbles onto something that corporate America and most of the Western world have forgotten about. Occasionally he stubles onto something that is true.
Thanks for your honest and thoughtful treatment of an important issue.
Thaks Jeremy, I just pray that we would be better stewards of our money than governemnt is.
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