Saturday, November 19, 2016

WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT ECONOMICS FROM BEING A MISSIONARY

To put it bluntly, I have learned that what some call “re-distribution of wealth” doesn’t work. For a lot of reasons.

My wife & I have spent a lot of time doing what we can to leave the most positive & enduring legacy from our time of serving here. For her, it’s doing children’s ministry & training those who are & will be involved in children’s ministry. For me, it’s developing pastors to the highest possible level as spiritual leaders.

You may not understand this, but one of the biggest temptations that a missionary can face is that of becoming the guy who gives out money. After all, there are innumerable needs all around.

But what happens when we redistribute wealth? When we do it in ways that are inappropriate, it results in resentment, greed, & jealousy. Resentment toward the foreign “Santa Claus” who has come to be the source of provision for meeting economic needs. Greed & jealousy toward those who have benefitted from the well-meaning benefactor. We run a very real risk of creating unhealthy welfare addicts with our uninformed benevolence.

And all the while, we feel really good about ourselves because we did something praiseworthy in meeting a tangible economic need.

Luke 4:18-19 really speaks to this issue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

I’m trying to communicate a lot of things in one short blog. Please feel free to ask about why I see things this way & I’ll do my best to clarify it to you.

But the bottom line is this: If you want to distribute something, it’s better to distribute the empowerment to create wealth, than to re-distribute wealth. You will never meet all the needs. Those needs will continue to afflict people long after you are gone or have used up your resources. The people will still be in bondage to satanic schemes to keep them in poverty.

But if you work hand-in-hand with the Lord to do what Luke 4 says, you will leave a lasting legacy of spiritual & economic freedom & empowerment.

This has implications not only in the place where we serve, but also in our earthly homeland.

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