ON OBLIGATING THE FUTURE

December 2003

Several prominent Christian financial counselors have written what essentially amounts to an eleventh commandment against the use of debt. In so many words, the commandment can be written: "Thou shalt not obligate the future." As if we can actually choose to not obligate the future, and that that future would be preferable to an obligated one. This fear-laden approach to honoring God with the whole of our lives is weak. In fact, just the opposite seems true to me. It is important TO obligate the future to please God. So choose wisely… but you MUST choose.

While at IBM, I remember hearing of a time-management seminar speaker who would stand in front the class with a big glass pickle jar. The speaker filled the jar with rocks and asked the class if it was full. "Yes," they replied, for there wasn't room for any more rocks. Smugly, the speaker produced a bucket of pea gravel and poured it in around the rocks. When asked if the jar was full now, the class repeated, "Yes." Bringing out a bag of sand, the speaker once again filled in the space around the rocks and gravel. "Full?" "Yes!" Finally, he poured a pitcher full of water in to complete the object lesson. When asked what could be learned from this, someone in the class said, "that you can do a lot more than you think you can." "No," the instructor said, "the lesson is that if you hadn't put the big rocks in first, you never would have gotten them in." The lesson applies to more than just time management.

Just as important tasks are the big rocks in time management, decisions to obligate the future are the big rocks in life management. If we stop and think about it, we have all knowingly and unknowingly obligated the future in many irrevocable ways. Each obligation is like a blank check that we sign and hand out to someone we do not know. Perhaps it will never be cashed (not likely). Perhaps it will cost us everything. Who is to know? We have just obligated the future. The rest of life is then organized to accommodate these obligations.

I signed my first blank check when I received Jesus as my Lord. With that big rock in the jar at an early age, some of the other rocks came naturally. Marrying my wife was one such big rock, as were each of our children. What is required of me to provide for them? What is required of me to love them? I still do not know the full amount of these checks.

Every idle word spoken, every bit of food I put in my mouth, every person I befriend. The fuel efficiency of a vehicle that I purchase obligates the future, as do the ever-changing needs of my local church. Any lease that I sign and what I choose to dwell on. These all have long-term payment plans of unknown cost. Some will reap dividends. Some will require "debt" servicing.

Most of us have a big rock in our jar called "family". We take seriously our obligation as parents to raise our children in the admonition of the Lord. That is why we home school.Wisdom led us to put that rock in the jar, and wisdom is required to order the rest of life around it.

In fact, wisdom, properly developed in us, will empower us to obligate the future in God-honoring ways.

TTFN,
Brett

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