There is a fable, you may have heard, about an American banker taking a vacation and encounters a fisherman in a small Caribbean village. The banker was impressed with fisherman’s catch, and asked how long it took to catch the fish. When the fisherman said, “not too long,” the banker asked what the fisherman did with his extra time. The fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends”
As the story goes, the banker suggests that the fisherman work a little harder, save some money to get a larger boat, grow his business, move to a larger market, and eventually after 15-20 years of working hard building his business, he could sell it for lots of money. The fisherman asked what would he do then, and the banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.”
I am not advocating being lazy, or providing less than our best to the marketplace, but the story makes us stop and think about our priorities.
1 Timothy 6:9-13, says, “But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.”
Dear Lord, you have provided us so many opportunities to contribute and things to experience in our lives, help us find the balance You desire for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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When I was younger I thought it would be nice to have a boat for my family to use at a small cabin friends of ours was letting us use. The catch was we had to keep the cabin maintained. Fair enough, right! We used this cabin for 4 years and while we had fun, most of my time was spent cutting grass, letting a pier in & out each week, dealing with cabin break in’s, twice, ins. on the cabin & boat for libality, maintaining the boat, hauling in fresh water to cabin, a lot, each week cause the cabin had no well and only pumped in water from lake for shower, & the pier was torched and damaged twice so we had to repair it. Of course I still had all my responsibilities at my home, family, job & church etc.
I finally gave it all up. The work involved haveing all the stuff I was dealing with was overwhelming. All I did was work myself to death just so I could have a boat and Oh Yea, it was only for 3 months out of the year. After that I had to stored the boat for 9 months with a cost also.
Owning stuff starts to own you and it’s just not worth it. I see some poor soul working himself to death every weekend to have a house 3 times the size he needs for his family with 4 wheelers, boats, cars, motorcycles, and the family too.
It took me too long to realize that life is ment to be lived and not indured.
The Lord said He would supply all our needs. Most of us have way more that what we need and if we could just realize this , we might see others that could use the excess of what we really don’t need.
It is more blessed to give that to receive. Amen!