Back when Fawnda and I were planning on bringing Kyan home, I spent a considerable amount of time planning and budgeting to ensure that we would keep afloat financially with Fawnda staying home, and with us dropping down to one income. Over the past year, I feel that we have reaped some of the rewards of all of that careful planning, but after a few recent setbacks, I had to pull out my old spreadsheets and rework the numbers in an attempt to squeeze out a few more dollars each month.
It was during the course of all of this planning that I happened to read the parable of the rich fool again. This parable is only found in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, and it covers a mere 9 verses. I have probably read through this parable dozens of times during my lifetime, but this time this story took on a much deeper meaning for me. For those of you who might not be familiar with this parable, here is Jesus' telling of the story:
"The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'. But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
With all of my recent planning, I have to admit that I was a little envious of this rich man, who was at a point where he could kick back and take life easy. However, when I read that God called him a fool, I sat up straight, and scolded myself for feeling that way. I still wouldn't mind being rich though, so the phrase, "rich toward God" really caught my attention.
I had to ask myself, "what does it mean to be 'rich toward God'?" I can imagine earthly riches, but this seems to hint at something much different. A few of the clues to the meaning of this phrase can be found before and after this parable. Luke 12:15 says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." This verse implies that these riches are separate from our possessions. Luke 12: 33 speaks of "treasure in heaven", which makes me think that these riches cannot be seen, and verse 34 states, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The word "heart" is often connected with the term of "love". This connection really helped me pull it all together. I remembered that Mark 12:30-31 contains the greatest commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." The plain and simple truth is that God values love so much more than anything else. Just as a modern day currency could have its value based on gold or silver, heaven's currency is based on love.
When I think of love, I often defer to the definition of love as holding some one's best interests in the highest regard - often ahead of one's own. Lately, I have spent a lot of time focusing on how I earn money and spend money, but I don't remember a time in my life that I have ever been this focused on how I'm earning or spending my heavenly currency (love). I am forced to ask myself, "if I were to put together a financial plan for my heavenly currency, what would that look like?" That's when I came up with the concept of the "Love Budget" - hence the title. There's an old adage that states, "we manage what we measure". If we're looking to manage our heavenly riches, I'm thinking that we must make it measurable.
There are a lot of great books out there on the topic of love, and I felt that this was a fitting blog entry with Valentine's Day being just a few days away. I read through Gary Chapman's book, The 5 Love Languages a while back, and that is a great resource on understanding how we give (spend) and receive (earn) love. I'm thinking about putting together a plan including tangible things I can do to better manage my heavenly currency. King Solomon is considered to be the wisest man that ever lived, and he is the author of this proverb found in Proverbs 14:22, "Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness." If what I'm thinking is true, then love is the most valuable thing I can possess, and a plan (budget, if you will) to improve love in one's life is not only good, but it would result in finding love and faithfulness!
What do you think about this "Love Budget" idea? What are some ways that you could be even more "rich toward God" and increase your heavenly currency? I don't know about you, but I would hate to live my life pursuing the ambitions of this world, only to come to the end and be bankrupt toward God.
