This post is one that I have only recently thought about and considered writing. It kind of came to me suddenly. This semester has consisted of me having to give a number of things to God. Many of you may even think you know what "investment" I may be thinking of for this post. However, you are only partially right I am sure. We all have our secret investments, our secret sins, our private life that no one but God knows about. For some people these little investments might be alcohol, drugs, pornography, overeating, or even religion. I am thus defining an "investment" as anything that we place a lot of time and effort into. You can think of it economically if you want. When you make an investment you are often putting a lot of money into something. Overtime this money accumulates and increases. The more time and money you put into the bigger and more important the investment is. This works the same with our secret sins.
I plan to be very blunt, truthful, and open with this post (well to most extents I think). I am not sure what I am getting into, but I do know that I have recently thought of another life philosophy -- what may be over my head is never over God's head. My sudden reason for writing this blog is because I have recently given an entire investment over to God. I know many people who would think I am referring to relationships. To some extent these people would be right, but this has not been my only investment in my life. I do not feel the need to share my investment that I gave to God and thus will not.
There is something peculiar about giving investments to God. I think this is why they are the hardest thing to give to God. People give things to God all the time. Sometimes we give life decisions, sometimes we give money, time, or service, sometimes we give small habits or things that are beyond our control to God. While these things may very well be difficult to give fully to God, I still don't think they are as difficult to hand over. Investments are things that we hold very close to our very soul. If we investing ourselves in worldly things, there is no room to fully invest in Jesus. This is a huge problem, as nothing should consume us more than the spirit of God. Yet, I think that many people in the world cling to these investments nearly as much as they cling to life itself. Investments are something we have given significant portions of our lives to. They are obsessions; they are addictions. Getting the picture yet? Investments are nearly impossible to give to God. Why? Because giving investments equate to literally giving ourselves to God. Think about it this way. What would it take to give away your entire life's savings that you have been saving up for thirty years. You have worked hard to save up and have spent considerable amounts of time finding ways to increase your investment. Your hard work has paid off and you have a substantial investment that only continues to grow. Heres the thing with sinful investments -- they never ever decline. I would go so far as to say that they cannot decline. Perhaps for a time we can ignore our sinful investments and they will remain stagnant, but I don't think they will ever shrink unless we fully give them to God and tell Him our life is completely His. Let me explain a few ways that I have personally failed to give investments to God.
First, I have tried to bargain with God. I'll call this the negative interest or declining balance approach to giving investments. This view makes it seem like you are trying to pay off a debt to God by slowly getting closer to nothing. Here's the problem, even if we ever managed to get this investment down to zero, the account is still open. We then refill it and even sometimes fill it more than before. I told God something along the lines of "Okay God, I know you want this, and I know you want all of this, but I am not ready to give it to you fully. So here's the deal, I will give you a little bit here and there until it is gone." Anyone else think this is a totally daft idea? Before you judge me, consider yourself if you have ever made such notions with God. Have you ever tried to give a little bit to God thinking that something is better than nothing? Here's the thing, if all sins are equal in God's eyes, then giving Him a little is not what he wants. This would be like giving a starving child nothing but water. The child will still die from lack of food. At first it looks like we are helping the child, but in reality we are doing him no good. The other problem I have found with giving God a little bit at a time is interest. I found that the more I tried to give God little bits the faster my interest in my investment increased. Clearly giving God a little bit at a time hoping to reach the end is not going to work. It also does not work to just say okay, I have what I have and when that is gone then no more. Have you ever seen a smoker say this is my last pack of cigarettes ever, and then buy more anyway? It's the same idea.
Second, I have tried ignoring the investment. It's kind of like trying to bury something and then try to forget where you buried it. You know that it's still there, and you know exactly where you buried it. I'll call this the out of sight out of mind approach to giving investments. This actually proved to be a pretty effective method -- at first. It's easy to give something up for a little while. All you have to do is remain in constant proximity to God and keep ignoring the overturned soil in the back yard. This method would work fine perhaps if the investment actually wasn't gone. In fact, you really just have a full account opened without interest gain. It is true that your investment isn't getting any worse, but it isn't getting any better either. Eventually like a dog looking for a bone I dug up my old investments. I wasn't able to ignore it forever. This also doesn't seem to work as a method for investment elimination.
The third and final method I have tried is just throwing the investment away. This is the concept of just quitting right away and getting rid of everything at once. I'll call this the cold turkey approach to giving investments. We have all heard storied of how people tried quitting an addiction cold turkey, but failed after a disappointingly short amount of time. This works the same for sinful investments. The problem with this approach is similar to the declining balance approach. I emptied the account, but the account was still open. Throwing everything away at once brings immediate satisfaction. We feel like a success and we feel like we have won a victory for God over Satan. However, Satan doesn't quit. He knows the account is still open, and he knows that we know how to refill the emptied investment. A smoker who flushes all their cigarettes down the toilet still knows how to go to the store and buy more. This approach has only best motives at heart, but sometimes it is just very hard to quit cold turkey.
I am now left with the method that actually works to give God investments. I'll call it the noway approach to giving investments. Wait . . . the "noway" approach? Does that mean there is no way to give God investments? Well, I know that cannot be the truth, but I really have not found a way to completely give God the investments we have created. The biggest problem is I cannot find a method to close the account. Any way I look at it I cannot force myself to keep the balance at zero, hide the account permanently, or forget how to refill it. So what, is everything hopeless? No. Are we doomed to suffer with out addictions forever? Well, to some extent I believe the answer is yes. After we allow an addiction into our lives there is some kind permanent hole drilled into us. We can try to repair the hole or cover it up, but it is forever going to be weaker. The only thing that can permanently change these self inflicted holes is by God. However, God does not always just fix our holes. God doesn't eliminate our sinful nature and our sinful desires as long as we live on this earth. All we can do is humble ourselves before God, give Him the investment we have been holding onto, and then trust Him to give us strength to carry on. Obviously God understands our slip ups and backsliding. He knows that He didn't make us perfect. However, our imperfection is not an excuse to give up on moving forward.
At this point you might be asking yourself the question "how can I say I gave God my 'investment' if I don't have a successful method of doing that"? Well, the answer is that I am going to try. I think my approach now is a combination of method two, three, and four. Is this approach really any different than the ones I have used in the past? Not really. Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. However, I don't think that this definition works with God. God will not be defined by any human definitions. People are constantly praying to God for the same things expecting different results, and guess what, God does give different results. Now, obviously there are some things that I will try to do differently with this attempt to give up my investment, but I cannot think of anything substantial. For some people accountability groups, support groups, and groups of people dealing with similar investments might provide help. I cannot close my account after making an investment, but God can. As a matter of fact, God is the only one who can close the account, and even then I don't know that he would ever make you forget the account existed.
Interestingly enough, the idea of God changing our perspective on the situation (investment) might be a great approach. I remember a few semesters ago sitting in a special chapel (summit) given Dave Ward. (it was 9/10/08 if you are interested in looking it up.) Yes, I did just spend 30 minutes finding the part of the sermon to make sure. I also think I probably should have listened to the whole message before writing this. One of the messages he gave he talked about a major pornography addiction that he had. At one point he mentioned that he was traveling to an adult bookstore praying to God about how he didn't want to do it. He got to the bookstore and heard a worship song there on the secular radio. He said the books seemed to fade away and become unappealing. On his drive back home God gave him such a distaste for pornography that he ended up throwing up so bad he had to pull over and continue to empty his system. Dave Ward explained that God wants everyone to be sanctified. For Dave, God gave him a complete change of attitude toward his addiction and investment. At that point Dave was cured. I believe that God has the power to change our perspectives and attitudes. This is the way to eliminate and give our investments to God. We need to be repulsed of our sinful acts and give them entirely to God.
I feel that I still have not adequately explained what an investment is or the power that they hold. The best I can explain an investment is by comparing it to a tumor. Not just any tumor, but a tumor that is guaranteed to cause more immediate pain removing it than keeping it. We know that in the long run removal is going to be better for us, but we are too afraid of the initial pain of letting it go. Instead we let the tumor grow, perhaps even out of control. Eventually we are completely driven by fear and we are actually feeding the tumor. Perhaps the tumor even begins to infect other parts of our bodies. God wants to take away this tumor from us, but he wants us to give it to Him. In some cases God may make the initiative and take the tumors away from us, but often He waits for us to call on Him. However, unlike a tumor, an investment actually gives us some kind of pleasure or satisfaction. We know that we can never obtain true satisfaction from God as long as we have this investment, but giving it away just seems too painful. We are afraid of letting go of our commitment. Perhaps we have spent so much time on this investment it doesn't seem worth it to give it all away. We instead tell God that He has to work around it. We expect that we can live life, and live it to the full doing our thing and God's. This is obviously not true, but we as humans often miss the obvious or completely reject the obvious. I know that I cannot be the only person that has ever struggled with a long term investment. God calls everyone to give their investments, addictions, and habits to Him. I hate the idea of wasting time. I am a big video game lover. To me, giving up an investment is like erasing a game that I have had 80 hours invested into. (My brother has done this to me at least once) You feel like you have completely lost 80 hours of your life. If I want to get that far again I have to dedicate another 80 hours doing something I have already done. perhaps 80 hours is a bit exaggerated for a video game . . . but I don't believe it is an exaggeration for a sinful investment. This is exactly why it hurts so much and why it is so hard to give up investments.
I know this post is really long. What else is new. Besides, I recently wrote some advice to a thirteen year old that was longer. I just feel that this issue is more important and bigger than most people realize. Perhaps many people don't even realize they are making an investment against God. These things are worldly, life consuming, dedications to The Enemy. We must invest in the only true investment worth making -- the investment in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
My challenge this time is an obvious one. Check your life. What investments against God have you been making? What addictions are you feeding and consuming your life with? What do you spend hours on that doesn't glorify God? Give them to God, and give them in the full. Rid yourself of these secret sins and give them God. God can purify us; God can purge us. Only then can we truly invest fully in the Kingdom of God. I think I will pray for repulsion against my investments, how about you?
Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
-Zach Haas
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