Creating a Blessed Life

Man’s creativity is endless, boundless, and impossibly unpredictable. It sets us apart from everything else in the Universe! We’re in a category of our own. It’s our greatest gift because it allows us to not only surprise ourselves, but surprise and inspire our Heavenly Parent, God, as well.

Think Apollo 13! Failure was not an option. They faced a unique challenge and had to call on their creativity or face certain death. They triumphed because they utilized their God given genius and their ability to take mental leaps. The creative quality of being able to think outside the box is what allowed them to do the seemingly impossible.

Not all problem solving is that dramatic but it calls on the same part of us. Think anything – a new flavor of chips, a labor saving machine or a way to cut corners!

“God is the first creator – the first and greatest artist. God created his children to be like Him/Her, giving us freedom so that we can co-create. God created the incomparable variety of nature, the sunrise, oceans, deserts and mountains, all with their distinct beauty, for our mutual delight and satisfaction. Is it not fitting that we should seek to understand and emulate the nature of our creator?” – Sun Myung Moon

Human beings are irrepressibly creative. Human imagination applied to the world is what the third part of the Three Blessings, “Be fruitful, multiply and have dominion” is all about. (Genesis 1:28). We were given this world by our creator, not for our own selfish purpose but as a place where we can exercise our creativity. We are meant to leave the world better than we found it. God gave us this world – it’s His gift to us, but what we do with it is our gift to God.

Loving the World

Because people are self-centered we have a tendency to use things for our own purposes rather than for the benefit of the natural world or others. You only have to see a strip mine to understand that. Paul speaks about the suffering of the creation in Romans:

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly….the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” – Romans 8:20-21

I was personally challenged by my own consumerism when I bought a beautiful granite counter top. Later, I received a calendar from the company with a picture of the mountain the granite was taken from. Literally, one side of the mountain was missing. I was horrified at the decimation I had contributed to. I just hadn’t realized what I was doing. We are given the earth not as owners to use as we wish but as stewards to care for and love with God’s heart. Perhaps one of the cultures that has best understood this is the Native American culture.

Chief Seattle made an important speech when he challenged the expansion west. He asked how the government could possibly buy the land.

“How can you buy yourselves the sky, the rain and the wind? That idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air, or the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every sandy shore and shining pine needle, every mist in the dark woods, every insect is holy in the memory of my people. We are part of the earth and it is part of us.”

The difference between Chief Seattle and the strip mine mogul or consumer is at the heart of what the Divine Principle calls the third Blessing (to have dominion.) We are only entitled to be in a position to have dominion over the creation when we have inherited God’s heart. Anything short of that and we are in danger of using our position or creativity in selfish and destructive ways.

The heart of stewardship

All expressions of our God given creativity need to be directed by love. This is what we call “stewardship.” It is similar in one sense to the Native American tradition of understanding that our inner resources, our incredible creativity, and our outer resources, the natural world, are gifts from God to be respected and cared for.

It is interesting to note that Jesus considered the use and care of property, money and nature to be so significant that according to scholar, Timothy Wiley, he made this the theme of over half of his parables and one sixth of all his recorded teachings. But we don’t live with the same consciousness!

1 Timothy 6:17 addresses the issue of stewardship with words for the rich that are quite strong.

“Command those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share…”

The question is who is rich? Does this apply to me?

Timothy had some profound guidance on how to be rich. The trouble is we don’t absorb it because “rich” is always the other guy. We define rich as the person who has more than me! Probably none of us think of ourselves as rich!

Nevertheless, if we compare ourselves to someone living in North Korea or Central Africa we are richer than we think. You may have noticed the article posted by Michael Hentrich on Faith Fusion’s website entitled, “Nothing to Envy.” It’s frightening to think that we are living on the same planet, at the same time, as people half a world away who have to eat tree bark and grass just to survive. The article impacted me greatly but I know three days from now I will probably move on and forget.

Did you know that if you earn $48,000 you are in the top 1% of all incomes in the world? So maybe that verse from Timothy does have something to do with me! I live in the top 1% of all wage earners.

Unfortunately, wealth has side effects. Rich people confuse being rich with feeling rich. I don’t always feel rich and so I discount the message. We want to feel rich. Feeling rich is fun.

Have you ever felt rich? I was reflecting on the first time I felt rich. It was when I had a summer job in high school. I didn’t earn that much, but on the other hand I didn’t have any expenses because my parents housed and fed me.

Being rich isn’t necessarily about having a lot of money, but rather having a margin whereby you have some freedom to spend. Margin is the key to feeling rich. I know some rich people who are very stressed about money. Wealth does have side effects. Rich people are often plagued by discontent. The more you have the more you want. The trouble is your appetite may never be satisfied – there is always one more car, one more toy, a bigger house.

As your appetite to consume grows, your margin gets less and even though you have a lot of money, you no longer feel rich! Everyone has heard of Lottery winners who are bankrupt 10 years later or become deeply unhappy. It seems insane.

Suffering a migration away from hope

It’s easy to shift from faith and hope in God to feeling you have to ensure your future all by yourself. In that scenario you can never actually save enough. How much money would you need to secure your future from every conceivable eventuality? You could never do it.

Fear of the future drives us to a self-centered posture. In an attempt to secure a future we are consumed with stress and find it hard to give generously. How do you make sure your hope doesn’t migrate from faith in God to faith in stuff?

The richer you become the more opportunity you have to give – both money and time, but the tendency is to give less. Being rich may enable someone to give a nice big lump sum to their church or favorite charity but as a percentage of total income it may not be significant. Think about it this way – God doesn’t care about how many zeros there are in your donation as much as he cares about the investment; percent is a better measure of investment.

The widow’s offering

You are no doubt familiar with the story of the widow in Mark Chapter 12.

“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

It helps to think in percentages. If you live on 100% of your income you will:

• feel pressure
• feel poor
• feel stressed

If you can decide to downsize and live on less of your income, you can have a small margin and with that margin comes a sense of freedom and wealth. Timothy wasn’t saying it’s bad to be rich – you may remember the verse that said “Trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” We are meant to be rich – nobody wants their child to be poor and suffering. You want your child to have the things they want and need.

Just the other day, I was driving with my son and a snowmobile pulled out in front of us. He commented that he would love to have a snowmobile and at the very same time I was thinking how much I would love to be able to give him a snowmobile. Parents want to give their children things that bring them joy – just because.

But your child has to learn how to be rich. Jesus emphasized giving generously and 1 Timothy echoes this. To be rich without experiencing a migration of hope away from God requires the kind of lifestyle that Timothy talks about. It requires humility; a willingness to give and share. That means not just giving the leftovers or a dollar amount to impress, like the people in the temple, but deciding ahead what percentage of your income you want to give in order to express a heart of generosity. We have to pre-decide what percentage of our income we will live on, what percentage will serve as our margin and what percentage to give away.

Why pre-decide?

It’s important to pre-decide these questions otherwise you end up prioritizing something else. It’s really easy to do. In the face of a tragedy we get drawn in and our giving becomes a quick emotional reaction. It’s good to give in the face of tragedy. Nevertheless, our giving can be so much more. Reactive giving doesn’t teach you how to be rich or how to live a blessed life.

This applies to both money and time. The best way is to invest in an organization that you value so that you develop a relationship with the cause over time that has depth. Again you have to pre-decide.

If we don’t pre-decide we get sidetracked. What if our regular volunteers on Sunday had not pre-decided to give their time? We would never know whether there would be coffee or not when we arrived at church. It simply wouldn’t work. Fortunately our volunteers know how to be rich. They have all pre-decided to live generously.

Living with a wealth plan

Ironically, as people get richer they give less. Maybe their income doubles and what was a large gift is now a small gift, relatively speaking. That’s why it’s smart to plan with a percentage in mind. To be rich is to: give first, save better, live happier.

As a people of faith we tend to be known for what we are against, more than what we are for. You hear it all the time. “Those people” are against pre-marital sex or “those people” are against this or that. I am sure you can come up with a list of things that religious people are supposedly against. Is that the reputation we want for ourselves?

What if, as people of faith, we were known instead for our generosity? Giving and serving have more potential to change the world than any ideological positions or arguments. Extraordinary generosity will make people stop and think. It will create respect and it will show others that God is not a concept but alive in our lives. It will express that God’s plan for our lives described in Genesis 1:28 not only makes sense but has the well-being of all in its scope.

If people could team up and use their creativity to land Apollo 13, we can pretty much solve any problem we put our mind to. We have an abundance of wealth in this world. The question is how do we use it?

This week, be rich! Live a Blessed life! Pre-decide – give more and don’t let your hope migrate away from God.