Broke and Broken

Not all the broke are broken. Not all the broken are broke.

Life’s hardships and challenges are not reserved solely for the down-and-out. I have been broke but not broken and broken when I wasn’t broke. I have learned in either case that investment is the way through. Those who wait to be saved, seldom are – and if they are, it’s not for long.

When you have nothing, invest yourself, because that is where real investment lives anyway.

Invest in…

• Others, because the givers have always been and will forever be the happiest people. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.†-Jesus Christ (Acts 20:35)

• A just and noble cause. It’s like the old story of the guy who felt sorry for himself when he had no shoes, but then he met the man who had no feet. Actually, I know more than one very good man who has no feet and they make no excuses. They throw no pity parties. Instead, they invest. “If you give to others, you will be given a full amount in return. It will be packed down, shaken together, and spilling over into your lap. The way you treat others is the way you will be treated.†-Jesus Christ (Luke 6:38, Contemporary English Version)

• Yourself. Invest in your education, which does not necessarily mean spending oodles and gobs on university degrees (though it could, if you have the means and the wherewithal). Life is education. Learn by listening, observing, reading, Googling…just commit to learning. Invest in your future. Discipline today may mean independence tomorrow.

“WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR THE NIGHT, BUT JOY COMES IN THE MORNINGâ€

The tendency, when everything is gone awry, when you are dead broke or horribly broken by circumstance or the actions or behaviors of another (or yourself, for that matter), is to become introverted in your viewpoint, to turn all of your attention to yourself, to lick your wounds, to draw others into your sorrow and pain.

That is human nature. That is a natural response of our self-preservation instinct. It is also the surest way to enhance the suffering and prolong the pain.

Go ahead and hurt because it hurts. Cry because it is cathartic. Mourn because it is natural and right. But do not drag around the tombstone from the graveyard where you buried the dead, where you gave the past its last rites so you could look ahead, so you could go one and live.

You cannot effectively invest in others, in just causes, or in yourself while you indulge the demons of bitterness and distress.

SELFISHNESS IS NO WAY TO LIVE…OR TO DIE

“And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.â€â€™ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.â€â€

— LUKE 12:16-21

I have read this bible story dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. I am not sure I ever noticed this one hint of utter sadness in it. This unnamed merchant, this “successful†businessman, who, if alive today might be giving Ted talks and gracing Forbes magazine or the Wall Street Journal, appears to have only himself in view. He has done everything he has done in life, not for the benefit of his spouse or children, not for the good of the community, not for some worthy charity or cause, but only for himself.

Now, he faces the same end the beggar by the barrel fire faces, the same end the leper living in the excommunicated colony of the diseased faces. There in the lap of the luxury he literally exchanged his life to attain, he is faced with his own mortality. There is no one to whom to leave his riches, no one to whom to hand down his legacy, no one to celebrate his life and achievements.

No one to give a damn.

His riches were as temporary and precarious as life itself. His death was as certain as the sunset. His story would have died with him in the silence of the city of the dead and been long forgotten had he not become a cautionary tale for all succeeding generations.

And then there is Paul, the Apostle, who traded his life of esteem and notoriety for one of sacrifice and investment. When he faced the inevitable, he said with certainty and celebration, “To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.†(Philippians 1:21)

There is the rich man, the envy of his neighbors, wrapped up in himself, set to die alone and have his memory swept away on the sands of time by the winds of apathy, except for Christ making him an eternal example, a Scrooge minus the redemption…a fool, a selfish, pitiable fool.

And here is Paul, risking life and limb to better the lives of others, to invest in his community…and to be forever immortalized, revered, remembered, and heard.

 Not all the broke are broken. Not all the broken are broke.