Investments

A young man in America made a long-term investment with his life about 34 years ago. He was convinced that by giving his life to God and being baptized there would be rich returns in the future. As time went on he noticed that when he spent time in Bible study and prayer his investment increased considerably. Also when his thoughts were drawn to other pursuits this investment began to decline.As time went on he met a beautiful young lady and decided to unite his life with her in marriage thus making his second most important investment. What made this so important is that it would significantly impact all his other investments. By nurturing, guiding, encouraging, and spending time, their relationship began to grow rapidly.As you might have guessed 4 more investments followed in rapid succession. It appeared like all his investments were thriving. They consumed a lot of food causing rapid growth. By spending much time and energy with them I bonded their hearts with mine. When work or the things of life took my attention, my little investments began to go astray.How are your most important investments in life doing? Are you guiding and leading them by your life? Spending time to nurture growth? Are you protecting your spouse and bonding his/her life to yours and to God? The rewards are astronomical.Fortunately God led me to connect my children to Him giving them real stability in a very volatile environment. When my first child left me I wasn't the least concerned. Rather, I was feeling very rich because he went on a 3 month mission trip. As time went on I realized that he wasn't coming back, but had decided to reinvest his life in the lives of the Karen people. After 2 years Ben came home to visit for a month only to recruit Andrew and Jason. A year after that Lisa, Travis and I went to see how my investments were doing. Travis right away decided to engage his life in God's work here in Asia. When I began to see how God had taken my little investments and made them to grow and yield such high returns I also had to stay.Our family has continued to grow to where we have 7 more young but growing investments.The SDA Mission has asked us to take on 118 more young investments. Praise God! I am feeling like a very rich man today. God has really increased my investments. This has all been possible because of giving my life to God and spending time with Him. The value of my investments have been greatly multiplied because of Lisa and her connection with God.If you want your investments to increase, make sure they are connected to God.