Thursday, December 13, 2007

Discipleship: Using Our Resources Wisely, Part 1

Imagine, for a moment, that you were blessed with a million dollars. You then determined that God had already blessed you so much financially that you wanted to do something special with this "extra" wealth.

With this wealth you decided to help those who are less fortunate financially and wanted to assist as many people as you could.

Option #1: Give It All Away
You could give all of your money away in one shot. Pros: It would help a tremendous number of people; for only one year it would require an intense amount of work. Cons: You would never be able to help people like that again; it would require an intense amount of work (which means you would most likely burn out by the end of the year).

Option #2: Try To Multiply The Money
You make wise investments and give away all that you profit. For example, let's say you were able to profit 5% of of the million annually, then that would be $50,000 you could give away each year. It would take you 20 years to give $1 million away but you would be able to keep giving year after year because you would always have the original million to keep multiplying. Pros: You would help more people in a life time; you are far less likely to burn yourself out on the workload. Cons: You would help less people in a year; you would have to do the work every year.

If you had to pick between the two options, which one would you pick? Why?

Also read part two and part three.

Note: in an attempt to keep my posts shorter I've split this topic into multiple parts. I'll release them one at a time a few days apart.

4 comments:

CFHusband said...

I'd have to day I'd give it all away. I'd maybe give some of it away to organizations that would multiply it, but I'd get it out of my hands. Seems to me history and present society is proving time and again that good intentions don't get us too far.

TerryKM said...

"Seems to me history and present society is proving time and again that good intentions don't get us too far."

Really good point.

CFHusband said...

"I have to SAY" is what I meant to say...

TerryKM said...

You know, when I read it I didn't even catch it saying "I'd have to day". I read it as "I'd have to say". Weird.