When did you last do something bold? When did you last color outside the lines, refusing to play it safe?
There’s a sign along the Alaskan Highway that reads, "Choose your rut carefully, you’ll be in it for the next 200 miles."
A lot of folks live their lives like that sign. Especially the spiritual dimension of their lives. They accept boredom as if somehow that makes them more spiritual.
But life is not meant to be monotonous. Life is meant to be an adventure!
In the first verse of Ecclesiastes 11, Solomon describes the risks taken by merchants in his day. They would "cast their bread upon the waters." That is, they would put their merchandise on boats to be shipped to foreign ports, hoping for a profitable return "after many days."
But consider these facts:
In Sol’s day, an awful lot of ships wrecked. Merchants would often take a total loss.
Pirates frequented the seas. Cargo was stolen.
Ship captains were often dishonest.
There certainly weren’t any insurance policies to cover losses.
And to top it off, there was a long wait to see if you were going to make any money.
Why would merchants take these risks? Because the reward was great!
By using this illustration Solomon is encouraging his readers to be risk takers. Not only does this scripture encourage us to be risk takers - but it encourages us to be high-risk takers!
Immediately we protest. We think of all the reasons we’ve been taught not to take high risks. But understand this, SOLOMON IS TAKING AN ILLUSTRATION FROM THE MATERIAL WORLD AND GIVING IT A SPIRITUAL APPLICATION!
We know this because of what Solomon says in the rest of the chapter.
Here are some SPIRITUAL HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD PRINICPLES:
1. GIVE OVER AND ABOVE EXPECTATIONS.
Ecclesiastes 11:2 - "Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth."
Since the future is uncertain we should hoard our material possessions, right? WRONG!
Sure, conventional wisdom teaches us to save for a "rainy day". But Jesus taught us in The Parable of the Rich Fool", to not only lay up treasure for ourselves, but also to be rich toward God. (Luke 12:21)
If you always hoard what God has blessed you with and don’t share with others you’ve totally missed the point of what being rich toward God is all about.
Solomon says "give a portion to seven, and also to eight." The number seven is the biblical number of completion. You would be doing what was expected of you to give a portion of your goods to seven people. But Solomon says - try something radical for God - give to the eighth person also! Take the high risk! Go ahead, "cast your bread upon the waters!"
The following story is a little lengthy, but it wonderfully proves Solomon’s point:
"The Rich Family in Our Church" by Eddie Ogan
(From Wit and Wisdom - June 1, 1998)
"I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy 12, and my older sister Darlene, 16. We lived at home with mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things.
My dad had died 5 years before, leaving mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946 my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.
A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we decided that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill.
Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enought cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders.
That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much!
After all, every Sunday the pastor reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church!
On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.
When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20 bill. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!
Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crips $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk. We just sat and stared at the floor.
We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed to whoever needed them. I knew we didn’t have a lot of things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor. That Easter Day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, se we must be poor.
I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn’t want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I though about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at the time.
We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark and we went to bed.
All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally, on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor.
We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday but mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.
At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church.
Our minister said, "Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."
Suddenly, it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100". We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so? From that day on I’ve never been poor again. I’ve always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!"
WE ARE NOT RICH BECAUSE OF WHAT WE HAVE, WE ARE RICH BECAUSE OF WHAT WE GIVE!
Here’s a second HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE:
2. DON’T MAKE EXCUSES.
Ecclesiastes 11:3,4 - "If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."
Some things are inevitable. Clouds will bring rain. A tree lies right where it fell. Solomon says some folks won’t take risks because they fear these occurences. They won’t sow their seed because they fear the wind might blow it away. They’re right - the wind might blow their seed away. Some folks think it might rain so they don’t try to harvest their crops. They’re right too! Sometimes when you go to get something positive done - something negative gets in your way. But you can’t sit on your hands throughout your entire life just because bad things sometimes happen!
DON’T WAIT FOR IDEAL CONDITIONS TO TAKE YOUR SPIRITUAL RISKS! No matter what precautions you take, there are some things you have no control over - so live by faith! Take the risks and leave the results with God!
Here’s another HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE:
3. EXPECT THINGS BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
Ecclesiastes 11:5,6 - "As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."
"The way of the spirit" could also be translated "the path of the wind". Meteorologists have learned a lot about the weather but still there is a lot of mystery in things like tornadoes and hurricanes, etc.
But if you really want to get mystical, just consider how the human body develops in the womb from a tiny fertilized egg. Man may dupliate some aspects of God’s gift of life - but he can’t create life!
Like the story of the scientist that challenged God to a contest to create life. God began forming a man from the dust of the earth just as He did in Eden. The scientist looked at God and said, "Okay, if you’ll just hand me some dirt I’ll get started also". To which God replied, "Get your own dirt."
Solomon’s application is in verse 6: "...even so, thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." Get busy and do something for God even if you don’t know exactly how it will turn out! We have no excuse for leading a dull, passionless life!
Don’t worry that you may fail if you try. Failure is only certain if you don’t try!
Solomon’s fourth PRINCIPLE FOR SPIRITUAL HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD:
4. PLAN ON DARK DAYS.
Ecclesiastes 11:7,8 - "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity."
Sure, sunshine is great. But there are going to be some dark days in everyone’s life. Know what makes the difference between sunny days and cloudy days? HOW YOU LOOK AT THEM!
C. S. Lewis, whose mother died when he was nine, later lost his wife Joy to cancer. When he was a boy he never came to grips with his mother’s death. As a man, he was forced to come to grips with the death of his wife. He said, "the boy chooses safety, the man chooses suffering."
I don’t think Lewis was being morbid. I think he was expressing the same truth as Solomon; we can face the dark days because of all the promises and strength God offers us. We dont have to run from pain and sorrow.
Certainly the life of our Lord Jesus proves this point. He was the greatest man who ever lived and yet He endured the greatest suffering. His strength to endure can become ours if we will take the risk to embrace our pain.
Finally, the fifth SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE FOR HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD:
5. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BIG PICTURE.
Ecclesiastes 11:9,10 - "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity."
The trappings of youth are only temporary but eternity is forever!
Young people tend to go to the extreme of not thinking about the consequences of their actions. But as we grow older, we can go to the other extreme. We tend to play it safe. We lead comfortable and predictable lives.
These last two verses of the chapter are not just a warning to young people, they are also a wake up call to older adults! Don’t become a dust collector! Cast your bread upon the waters! Don’t let fear, pessimism, and paranoia rule you! Stay spiritually awake! Remain spiritually active!
No cost is too great a price to pay for the cause of Christ! Even if you lose your life trying to serve Christ remember what Jesus said, "He that loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will find it!" (Mark 8:35)
Find it! Find that abundant life that Jesus offers. Take the high risks for Him. Any individual or church that will practice these principles will find the rewards to be great!
