If I Were a Rich Man

As we ate our meal at the restaurant, I tried to summon up the courage to broach the subject. I knew I needed to ask — I’d been feeling convicted on the issue for quite some time — but I really didn’t want to. It would be prying, I rationalized. It’s none of my business.

“Business??!!” The shrieks of Jacob Marley echoed in my head. “Mankind was my business!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” I mused. “Now even the spirits of fictional characters are on my case. That’s just rich.” I smirked discreetly at my little pun. Rich was definitely something I was not. We lived responsibly, and while there were always choices that had to be made, I would not be sacrificing when I picked up the check for supper that night. But compared to the man across the table from me, I might as well have been Warren Buffett.

After investing his life in ministry for over 40 years, nearly three decades of it as a foreign missionary, it had come time for my dinner companion to “retire.” His retirement fund consisted of Social Security, odd jobs, and the faithfulness of those who continued to give, as most of them had for decades. Didn’t he have a nest egg? Sure, if you count what his wife had scrambled for breakfast that morning. Ironically, it was mostly the individuals who remained as supporters — most of the churches had dropped off for one reason or another. The reasons didn’t really matter — the stark reality was that his support had been cut in half from its pre-retirement levels. Not that he had been living the life of Riley before either.

So here I sat, half of me wanting the conversation to turn towards money, the other half dreading that it would. I had done so little in the past to help him, which I justified mostly on the basis that I couldn’t. After all, I had obligations and a growing family of my own, and charity begins at home, right? But let’s face it: if I had really chosen to make it a priority, I could have done at least a little something. Examples of things of lesser value I had managed to find resources for paraded through my mind condemningly as I fidgeted with my food. I had helped out here and there, but not consistently, and definitely not proportionate to what he had given me. Yes, I felt guilty, but not because he ever made me feel that way. It was the kind of guilt that comes from knowing that I simply had not done my best.

I had no idea what I was going to do or how I was going to do it, but I still felt responsible. Whatever I offered had to be significant, and it had to be real — for it to be otherwise would have simply added insult to shame. The conversation moved from family members to the weather to common acquaintances. I started to fidgit some more. Was I just going to have to go ahead and blurt it out?

Suddenly, the conversation turned to the story of a substantial gift he had received that week. The giver had sought to remain anonymous, but he had managed to figure out his identity nonetheless. Apparently it wasn’t the first time this person had assisted my dinner guest. While genuinely happy for him, that lump in the pit of my stomach got larger — others were stepping up where I was failing. This was not going well.

As if that wasn’t enough, the benefactor was self-employed, and his business was suffering during this economic downturn. Perfect. The anonymous donor was not only generous, he was also sacrificial. I was out of my league.

Seeing that there was no hope of this situation turning in my favor, I decided there was no time like the present to discharge my responsibility. “So how bad is it?” I blurted out.

“Well, you know, when you have to live on a third less than what you’re accustomed to living on, you have to make some adjustments, but it’s not like they can’t pay the bills or anything,” came the reply. “They’re doing OK.” He was talking about his anonymous donor friend.

Defeated, I shook my head. I was not going to wriggle off this hook. God was going to make me come out and adress this thing head-on.

“No, Dad,” I said. “How bad is it for you? How are you guys doing?”

I will never forget the calm, matter-of-fact expression on his face. I’m sure he’d wondered where I had been all these years, and had probably wished I’d done more on occasion. But if he had ever harbored any resentment towards me on the subject, he had long since forgiven me, because there was nothing like that in his eyes now.

“OK,” he said, “I’ll tell you exactly how it is. We’ve always done what the Lord has asked us to do . . .” His voice trailed off a bit, and his brow furrowed as he evaluated the truthfulness of that last statement. I remember thinking how ironic it was that his track record of obedience wasn’t as obvious to him as it was to me. “At least I’m pretty sure we have. We’ve certainly tried. And each month I do whatever work He sends my way. Sometimes it’s a lot; sometimes, like this past month, it’s not. But then when the bills come, I sit down and pay what I can, and the rest . . . ” He pushed his hands across the table in a symbolic gesture. “The rest, I tell the Lord, ‘There you go, Lord. I’m all out. The rest is yours.’ And He always supplies. Sometimes He sends more work. Sometimes it’s in the form of a gift like this. It never happens the same way twice, but it’s always timely, and we always have enough.” He sat back in his chair. “That’s it,” he concluded simply. “That’s the way we’ve been doing it for years.”

It was then that I realized, sadly for the first time in my life, just exactly how rich my father is. A rich man is one who wants for nothing, who doesn’t have to be concerned about the incidental expenses of life, who is free of worry that his resources will fall short of his needs. My Dad is so rich that he hasn’t had to be concerned about any of that stuff for decades. There’s no hesitation, no concern, no doubt. He’s learned to trust God for everything, and God has never let him down.

I’m sure there will come a day when I will have to shoulder more responsibility for the care and well-being of my parents. But I now know how to administer my father’s affairs the same way he always has, and can tap into the same Resource that has made him one of the richest men on earth. I just hope that one day I can learn to become as rich as he is.