Little By Little

I read an interesting scripture this morning in the Old Testament. God is telling Moses and His people how He’s going to increase their borders and make them great. He’s promising them a lot of territory. But then He says; “But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would be too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” Ex 23: 29-30
Isn’t that interesting? God wanted to bless them, but not all at once because they couldn’t handle it. Wow,they are still fighting over the land.
While it seems like a really hard left turn, I saw a commercial during the Super Bowl (oh, sorry. I’m supposed to call it the ‘big game.’ Don’t want to offend the ‘big game’ people). It was about winning a million dollars. The guy bathed in gold coins, rode a jet plane to exotic places and acted like a rock star.
Bear with me now. Close your eyes and imagine what you would do with a million dollars. Be smart. Think carefully. What would you do with it? Your answer shows if you’re ready for it or not.
The first thing you would do with it is pay $360,000 in taxes. Did you remember that? If not, you may not be ready for money like that yet. If you spent the million first, you’re already upside down. You’ve only got $740,000
Second would you give 10% of it away? How easy would that be to do with money you never budgeted?
Did you think of others, of being generous with your windfall?
Third, you should have saved 10%. Surely you set some aside for the future, right?
Finally, you’ve got $540,000. What would you do with it? Probably pay off all those bills. You could probably pay off the mortgage too.
Then you can bathe in coins and fly around like a rock star.
Right. There’s probably not that much left, and if you go crazy it will disappear before you know it. Easy come, easy go. Most people who win lotteries waste the money and end up more broke than before they won.
How aout this? Pay the taxes, give 10% away, hire a financial consultant and sock it away. Leave it for 20 years (if you're young enough). Then live off the dividends, over $200,000 a year. It's called delayed gratification. Every four years you would get more than the original windfall.
What about relationships? You’re looking for that ‘perfect mate.’ But what does the ’perfect mate’ get? A perfect one too? If you’re looking for great friends, you need to be a great friend. I know this sounds silly, but if you’re searching for really quality people, you want to be a really quality person too. Maybe you should figure out where they hang out. Run with them and make their life better as well as yours.
Little by little. Better and better.
Be it relationships, family, job, finances, or health, you can’t get there from here in one big leap. You’re not going to run out the door one day and run a marathon. Other areas take time and discipline too.
But you might as well get started, right?