Perspective Amongst Commitment and Money

There have been many thoughts and ideas that I've been reflecting on for the past week. I was ready to blog on the evils of money and then got on a tangent about commitment but have found that there is perspective to bring all of these pieces together.

Two events that happened in the small town I live in brought to life the evils of money thoughts for me. One had a former sheriff swindling an elderly gentleman out of a large sum of money. The other had an elderly couple brutally murdered over a financial contract gone bad. I know or knew many of the individuals involved in these tragic events. The men involved in both of these incidents in my opinion based their entire self-worth on money or the image of having money. I could go into more detail but I think that suffices for where this blog is headed.

Commitment became prominent in my reflections when I was writing a letter to the families at our church where I serve as the Youth & Family Minister. While writing this letter the concepts and thoughts about how commitment is a two way street came to light. Commitments that have only a one-sided effort soon fail. This is true in relationships with friends, spouses, colleagues, jobs, children and our Maker. I must admit this piece is very self-damning for me as I believe this is an area I fail at all too often in too many ways. For whatever reason I had never thought of this commitment needing both sides to be involved for it to truly be a commitment.

As I stated earlier money and commitment were going to be blogs unto themselves and maybe will be sometime in the future but I have something more positive, more important for what makes life significantly different. I need to tell you about my experiences from yesterday to lay the groundwork for perspective.

I am working on getting some finances put together so that I can simplify life and get out of a business I am part owner of. In order to do this I have been relying on my wife and father to get paperwork into the bank. For a variety of reasons this has taken a great deal of time and when it did happen it wasn't the right paperwork. I didn't handle this well yesterday and frankly I just got pissed off at the whole situation. So I came home to sit in my own pity party and just to be mad at the world I guess. As I was stewing in my own frustration I received word that the 3 year old son of friends that I had taught with was found to have a brain tumor. This young man has been battling cancer for a couple of years and looked to be beating the odds of his cancer when this setback occurred yesterday.

This hit me unusually hard last night. I cried and then reflected on my own self-pity party. How pathetic to be honest. Perspective is everything. Here I was upset because something didn't happen in MY time and as I wanted it. (And yes, it involved money and in some ways commitment. Pot meet kettle.) Suddenly none of that mattered. My friends were dealing with the possibility that their son may not live and at the very least was going to be dealing with a major surgery, more chemo and a life turned upside down once again. I still was fighting tears most of the day thinking about it.

What does all this mean? There have been many events happening around me that have caused me to take a step back to gain perspective on what really is important and to be thankful and yes hopeful about what life has in store. With the happenings in the little burg I live in, friends all around wondering if they have jobs, little Owen fighting a tumor once again and just being amidst the doldrums of winter I have found perspective and hope. Peace is still something I seek but isn't as consistently a part of my being at this point. All of this has reinforced how thankful I should be daily, hourly, every second. For most of us, if we open our eyes and hearts to the world around us we can find others in a situation more stressful and more painful than our own.

We need to remember Whose we are and that we have been promised to be loved, forgiven and surrounded by grace. Our perspective needs to look at others with compassion. A compassionate heart lets us be grateful for all that we have been given. Now we are human, we have bad moments, bad times and there are things like Owen's illness that make no sense and cause us to stop and ask why. That is okay, that reflection helps us to see life in a very real way and helps us to reach out and make a difference for those who are in circumstances that don't make sense and cause pain. A commitment was made to us by Him who died on the cross. As we enter Lent on this Ash Wednesday it is a time of reflection and a time that we uncomfortably focus on our own sinfulness. We are there, no one more or less than the other in reality. We need to make that commitment a two-way relationship. That is where the idea of fasting or giving up something for lent comes in. It's a commitment to a God who has promised to never let go of His side of that commitment.

The last part of the perspective is we can't just stay in Lent. Lent only prepares us for the real Gift. Easter is coming, the resurrection, the redemption, the ultimate commitment, greater than all the money in the world. Forgiveness and love have never been expressed so completely, so majestically. If it hadn't happened, if there was no resurrection, our world would have been just as radically changed as it was radically changed with it.

I want to finish with the lyrics from a song that has resonated with my heart and soul from Brandon Heath. It's a song entitled "Give Me Your Eyes" and here is the chorus.

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

My challenge for myself for Lent is to give up my selfish thoughts, to work hard at not focusing on me and my own issues and life. I want to do what that chorus says, take Jesus' eyes and see the beauty and pain in others. Lord, help me to reach out and gain the perspective from others' eyes, others' shoes. I know I feel my best when I am helping others. I sometimes get obnoxious in trying to be helpful but I'd rather err on the side of trying too hard than not making the effort at all. Join with me in losing our focus on money or on our own needs and let's give up selfishness for Lent. Pray with me daily that God would give us His eyes, love, arms and heart. What a perspective that would be and what a world that would create! Amen!