Investing

As I stare out my sun-filled window at the deceptively mild looking day (which is really cold), my eye catches on the Oaks in our backyard.

At our last house in Old Home, we had no trees: being a new home development, we had the "Stick masquerading as a tree" in our front yard. Sure, no leaves to rake - but neither any relief from the sun in the hot summer.

Here we are surrounded by oaks - not the giant oaks of my youth, but spindly far reaching oaks, oaks that have survived the uncertain weather, harsh summers, and cold winters of New Home. Do they shed leaves? Absolutely -great mounds of little leaves that stick in the grass and blow with the wind. Do they provide shade in the heat of summer? Absolutely - one can go outside and not be sunned down directly by the heat.

But they provide unlooked for benefits: They provide a lovely frame to look out the windows. They provide a spot for the plethora of local birds - blue jays, sparrows, doves, cardinals, even occasionally a hawk - to hide and rest and sing. Were we to need them, they shed a plethora (up to half a ton per tree!) of acorns, which could presumably be used as meal (haven't tried it yet; maybe I will someday). Their fallen branches become fodder for the next outdoor campfire.

But in order for all of this to happen, something had to take place: someone had to save these trees.

At the time our current domicile was built (mid 80's?) the builder had to look down the corridor of time and realize that saving the trees that were present (perhaps planting more?) was a good idea, worth more than razing the land and building a bigger house. In other words, they had to make an investment - an investment in the future, an investment in the trees. They had to have a vision.

The same is true of our own lives - especially now, at the beginning of the year in the throws of resolutions and goals and objectives.

There are two levels of investments that we make in our lives: temporal and eternal.

Simply put, what are investing our lives into temporally? Every day, simply by the fact that we choose to spend our lives on some things and not on others, we are creating an investment of time in certain activities. How often do we take the time to ask why we are spending that much time - and often money - on certain activities and not others? More importantly, do we look down the road 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, our lifetime - and see where these investments of time and money will lead? Will theybe like the oaks in my backyard that continue to provide beauty and usefulness to those around them, even after the originators are long gone? Or will it provide the stick in the front yard, dying when we lose interest in it or when we die, a strange plant in a foreign soil that could never grow?

What is true of the temporal is true of the eternal. Someday, sooner or later, we will all return to God. We have the story of talents (Matthew 25: 14-29) and the warning of Paul in 1st Corinthians 3: 10-15 that our works will be judged (and rewarded) to remind us that our lives are not lived and invested in a vacuum; and if one will read and accept it in this light, the entire book of Ecclesiastes (a highly underrated book in my opinion) is an discussion on the wisdom of spending and investing one's life wisely based on the certainty of death.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says 'If you keep a lots of rules I'll reward you, if and you don't I'll do the other thing.' I do not think that this is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven; that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other." (Christian Behavior)

In the midst of a New Year full of possibilities and new opportunities, what are you investing your life in - for time and for eternity? What are you in the process of becoming as a result of your investments?