“Be content with what you have.”  – Hebrews 13:5 

“If I ever win the lottery I’m going to . . .” [fill in the blank].  Or maybe you’re an optimist who says it more boldly; not “IF I win the lottery,” but “WHEN I win the lottery.”  Either way, how many of us have ever said it, if not out loud, at least fantasized about it privately?  Oh, how we dream of a few million bucks falling in our laps!  Yes, that would solve everything.  Or would it?

The wakeup call usually comes when we read about some lottery winner, or other newly-rich person, who ends up losing it all.  While precise statistics are hard to come by, at least based on my meager research, some of the studies and anecdotes (mostly) seem to suggest that a significant number of winners eventually encounter financial difficulties, with a substantial portion, if not all, of their winnings slipping away.  Overspending, poor investments, and indulgent lifestyles seem to be the primary causes, not to mention family squabbles, divorces, addictive behaviors, or gambling habits.

Steve, my best buddy from childhood, once shared with me some great advice he had received from his father years ago.  “You always want to have enough,” he said, “but you don’t need to have too much.”  Having been close to Steve’s dad, who was like a second father to me, I can say with certainty that he modeled his own words.  Work hard, he might add, excel at what you do, take care of your family, be a good citizen, look out for your neighbors, contribute to your community, then “be content with what you have,” and your life will be abundant beyond any lottery winnings you could ever imagine.

My own dad had an amusing fantasy about winning the lottery.  “When I win the lottery . . .”  (My dad, ever the optimist!)  “When I win the lottery,” he would tell my brother, “the first thing I’m going to do is buy you a new pickup.”  My brother, you see, had this old beat-up pickup truck he kept out on his ranch that he used to hall hay, feed his cows, and do other chores around the place.  Filthy, rusted, dented, cracked windshield and torn seat covers, smelling like cow manure, yet that old pickup served its purpose as well as any fancy new Ford F150 ever could.  So, every time Daddy brought it up, my brother would just look at him and laugh.  He loved that old truck, and for him it symbolized what it means to have enough, and to “be content with what you have.”

“Encourage one another and build each other up.”  – 1 Thessalonians 5:11 

During my investment banking days, I once got into a heated debate with my boss about the performance of a certain individual in our firm, who my boss considered invaluable because of his genius bond trading ability.  While I could not disagree about his superior skills, the problem was he made enemies with almost everyone with whom he came in contact, which I argued was costing the firm more than his genius produced.

The problem with genius, Liz Wiseman explains in her brilliant book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, is that some seem “to drain intelligence and capability out of the people around them.  Their focus on their own intelligence and their resolve to be the smartest person in the room has a diminishing effect on everyone else’s.”  Others, however, use “their intelligence as a tool rather than a weapon.  They apply their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capability of people around them.”  Wiseman refers to the former as “diminishers” due to their tendency to be “so absorbed in their own intelligence that they stifle others and dilute the organization’s crucial intelligence and capability.”  The latter she labels as “multipliers” who bring out “the intelligence in others, creating collective, viral intelligence in their organization.  One leader is a genius.  The other is a genius maker.”

This whole concept she cleverly summarizes in the opening chapter of the book with a quote by Irish rock star Bono.  “It has been said,” Bono states, “that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person in the world.”

Gladstone and Disraeli were both indisputably genius leaders in their time.  But if one was a “diminisher” and the other a “multiplier” – that is, one purely genius versus the other a genius maker – which do you suppose had the greater and longer-lasting impact?  And that, fundamentally, was the argument I was having with my boss that day.  Certainly, the bond trader’s genius was to be applauded and rewarded, but how much more could have been produced by his genius had he been a multiplier rather than a diminisher, or as Paul wrote, to “encourage one another and build each other up?”

“. . . you entrusted me with five talents.  See, I have gained five more.” . . . “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  – Matthew 25:20,21 

Until I read Julia Cameron’s classic book, The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, my long-held belief had been that creativity was limited to those we often think of as “artists” – painters, sculptors, writers, musicians and the like.  It never occurred to me that in some unique way we are all creative.  But as Julia Cameron explains, if we are in fact created in the image of the Creator then it stands to reason that we too are creators.

In the “Parable of the Talents” Jesus tells of a wealthy man who went away on a journey.  In his absence he entrusted his financial assets (talents) with three managers.  To one he entrusted five “talents”, to another two, and to the third one.  After his return he called upon his managers for an accounting.  The manager who had been entrusted with five talents as well as the manager with two had each doubled his money during his absence for which the wealthy master was extremely pleased.  But the third man had not bothered to invest the money at all with which he’d been entrusted, but instead had hidden it away, infuriating the wealthy man.  “You wicked, lazy servant!” he yelled.

I’ve often wondered why the master was so angry; after all he got his money back which seems better than losing it, right?  Disappointed perhaps, but furious?  Then several years ago I began to study Julia Cameron’s works and that’s when the parable started to make sense to me; that is, we too have been entrusted with certain gifts, talents or resources with which we can either choose to invest in the good work of God’s Kingdom, or choose to do nothing; or worse, to misuse it.  Either way would be to squander what we had been given, and it was the squandering that infuriated the master.

Who says creativity was given to only a select few, those we refer to as artists?  The fact is, God has given each of us some special unique creative abilities, and like the “Parable of the Talents,” entrusted us to invest wisely.  As Julia Cameron says, “The Great Creator has gifted us with creativity.  Our gift back is our use of it.”  Someone once speculated that there will only be one question to answer on judgment day and that is, “What did you do with what I gave you?”  Does that not summarize the lesson of the Parable?

“This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.” – Jeremiah 38:4 

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of being ignored when you tried to offer advice to someone in an effort to protect them, warning of something you know to be potentially harmful?  Or perhaps you were the one who ignored the warning and suffered the consequences.  Most of us have.  An example might be a mother warning her small child to not touch the burner on a hot stove.  (I did that once when I was four-years-old, and I still remember those painful burns on my fingers.)

Once I recall getting crossways with one of our hiring managers who was insistent on recruiting a certain individual who was well known to me for having a long history of creating turmoil and conflict.  Yet, despite my warnings the manager hired him anyway, assuring me he could control the guy’s behavior.  A couple of years passed, then one day I received a call from the manager admitting that I had been right and apologizing for not heeding my advice in the first place.  Had I not been guilty many times myself of failing to heed someone’s warning, maybe I would have been tempted to rub that manager’s nose in a big “I told you so.”   But the truth is, I appreciated the manager’s humility and courage to admit his error, which I believe spoke volumes about his integrity.

That little episode from my corporate career is not so different from that of the Prophet Jeremiah during biblical times when he tried to warn the people of Jerusalem, “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine and plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live.”  But instead of believing Jeremiah and heeding his warning, some of the officials demanded that he be killed.  “This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin,” they cried out to King Zedekiah, then threw him into a muddy cistern where he would have died except for another official – a foreigner – who convinced the king that Jeremiah’s prophecy was in fact true.

Sometimes I think it is hard to hear the truth when the truth is not what we want to hear.  That manager did not want to hear that he was making a bad hire, so he ignored my warning.  The people of Jerusalem did not want to surrender to the Babylonians, so they ignored Jeremiah’s warning.  Thus has it often been with some of my own bad decisions, ignoring the warnings because I did not want to hear it, then suffering the consequences.

“. . . when a wise man is instructed, he gets knowledge.”  – Proverbs 21:11 

Among the many important roles she played in our family, most notable was that of being the family scholar.  She was my great aunt who we called Aunt Jenny, except that was not her real name.  Her real name was Janie, not Jenny, and to all those elementary school children she taught during her distinguished fifty-year career, and among most of the town folks where she lived, she was respectfully known as “Miss Janie”.  (That should give you a little hint about the era in which she lived and the fact she never married.)

Aunt Jenny was my grandmother’s older sister and only sibling, and always part of the scene in our family.  She lived her entire life in the same house she and my grandmother were raised in, which was right next door to my grandparents’ home, that is until my grandfather passed away and she moved in with my grandmother so they could take care of each other.  I never remember having a meal in my grandparents’ home – ever – that did not include Aunt Jenny and some of her delicious recipes.  She was part of the scene.

Aunt Jenny had more knowledge tucked away in her brain than almost anyone I’ve ever known, like a walking encyclopedia.  Because of her unceasing sense of curiosity and passion for education she was a lifetime learner well into her nineties.  She never stopped reading anything she could get her hands on, and wrote copious notes about what she learned.  We found written evidence in her tattered Bible, for instance, that she had read it all the way through at least fifty times; thus, her distinction as the go-to family scholar.

Aunt Jenny knew a lot about a lot of things, but in spite of her knowledge and intellect she never came across as a know-it-all.  She would certainly share what she knew when called upon, but I never recall her being imposing or intimidating, and I think that is because however much knowledge she had, she always knew there was more to learn.

And that to me may be her greatest legacy, not her knowledge but her wisdom.  As the Proverb says, “when a wise man is instructed, he gets knowledge,” and Aunt Jenny was wise enough to never stop seeking instruction, which is why her brain was so filled with knowledge.  Aunt Jenny, a.k.a. Miss Janie, what a gift from God she was to our family, the community she served, and the generations of children she educated!