Keep your money away from the moths...

The Dow Jones index dropped 500 points today. Every channel I turn to on the TV is talking about panic, recession, depression, financial ruin...

How can something like this happen in America, to a place like Lehman Brothers and AIG?

Well, it would appear that even the most stable things in the world are unstable. Even in America, even to the richest of the rich, things like this can happen. In this life, the mighty will fall.

That's why Jesus urged those who listened to Him to keep their treasures in the Kingdom of Heaven, away from things in this life like economic depression and recession. That sounds like pretty good advice today. The marvelous secret Jesus showed us... the Kingdom of Heaven is all around us. It's at hand. It's here. Now!

Investments in banks and economies are always subject to ruin. Investments in people, in lives, in stories will produce returns for eternity. People are the safest, surest investment out there because the relationships you invest in will not only pay off now, but they will pay off down the road, all the way into eternity.

I met with a group of small group leaders in my living room yesterday. Over cheap, pick-up pizza, with the sweet sound of curly headed, blue eyed children playing and running in the back ground we discussed just such investments. One couple is getting ready to release a leader they have walked with and helped train over the past weeks and months. That's an eternal return on investment. Every person those new leaders impact will be a direct credit to the eternal account of both leaders. Another of the groups has had to deal with some space issues. Creatively and almost in beautifully stubborn fashion, they fought the urge to turn inward. Another leader faced a hard confrontational issue and worked through it rather than running from it.

These two situations are a stark contrast to me. I see the pictures streaming in from Wall Street, dejection, fear, discouragement, doubt. I sit in a living room with young leaders carrying the added burden of helping people discover spiritual maturity as they walk toward it themselves, voices bouncing with hope, eyes glimmering with resolve.

I've never been so encouraged and so hopeful about every investment in the Kingdom. Every investment in another person is an investment that Wall Street can't match. I've never had such clarity about the choice of what I'm going to devote my extra hours to. I've never been more excited about little things like lunch meetings where mutual investment is the order of the day.

God, let me invest more time in people, and less time in the dollars and cents that will never add up to enough. Keep me focused on the people that you love. Teach me what it means to seek your Kingdom first. You said that if I'd do that, then I'd have what I need. Thank you for that.

Sorry 'boutcher luck Lehman's Bros. I've got some investment tips you should look into!