Double Up Your Dollars
It has been said that the quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
Contentment is the key to plenty. “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. ... So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content” (1 Timothy 6:8-9, cf Proverbs 21:20, 21:5).
It's a Wonderful, Self-sacrificial Life
Frank Capra’s 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life” was at one time considered possibly the most “can’t miss” holiday film, with multiple generations of America watching it every year at Christmastime. It seems that it has failed to translate to recent generations, falling out of most younger people’s lists of favorite Christmas movies. The most obvious reason that this film has become less popular in recent decades is that it is nearly 80 years old and shot in black and white. But as I was watching it this past [Christmas Season] I noticed a few other reasons why the film’s storyline and values resonate less and less with Americans as time goes by.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” tells the story of a man named George Bailey from a small middle American town called Bedford Falls. Ever since George was a boy he had grand dreams in his head of all the places in the world he would travel and all the magnificent experiences he would have and what a name he would make for himself. And yet, time and again, George’s pursuit of his dreams is stymied by his life circumstances. Over and over during the course of his life, when George is about set to chase his dreams, disaster strikes … Responsibility calls … Life happens. And at every challenge, George does the right thing. He denies himself. He answers the call to service and responsibility, serving the poor of his local community and his family.
But, even when doing right, he unknowingly allows a seed of resentment to grow in his heart.
When George’s business is faced with bankruptcy he, despondent, goes to a bridge and contemplates taking his own life. From his perspective, his life has been a failure. He hasn’t pursued his dreams, he hasn’t attained his goals, he hasn’t been true to himself, he hasn’t followed his heart. He has denied himself and served others his whole life and for what? Life in a broken down old house, running a bankrupt business, serving a bunch of ungrateful nobodies in a nowhere town? Maybe it would have been better if I had never been born, he concludes.
Thankfully, his guardian angel intervenes and shows him all of the ways his service has touched and changed the lives of others. George leaves the bridge without any of the circumstances of life having been changed, but he has a new perspective. He no longer resents his family, his broken down house, the people of his little town. He sees them as beautiful and worthy of his love and care regardless of their flaws.
The film could have ended there, honestly. The victory was won. but Hollywood needs things to be wrapped up in a sentimental and “on the nose” fashion of course, so the whole town arrives to shower George with love and to donate money to pay off his debts.
Now, I ask, why is this story not translating to modern Americans? Because our value system has fundamentally changed as a culture. Our greatest good is now to be authentic to your individual self. It is considered deeply, psychologically unhealthy to deny your desires for the good of others. Our shared cultural imagination now holds self fulfillment as the greatest good rather than self denial. Self-denial has gone from being a mark of highest virtue to instead be considered a pathology.
Choose almost any popular film or book written in the past 50 years and you will find the protagonist usually has some version of this character arch: their community has been oppressing them, stifling their creativity, stifling their self expression. Their cultures do not allow them full self expression and so they must go beyond the bounds of their society on a journey to find themselves. To follow their heart. And by following their own desires and instincts, they become a fully actualized, a truly happy person who is able to go back home and save the day, showing everyone just how wrong they were to doubt them.
"It’s a Wonderful Life" tells a very different story. It says that George, in setting aside his dreams and submitting to a life of responsibility, unwittingly has the most fulfilled and satisfying life possible. This is deeply offensive to our 21st century sensibilities. It is definitely a more Eastern, older world, collective, perspective. And yet, not completely so. Because, rather than devaluing the individual, it emphasizes the immeasurable value and impact of every individual person, every human life. This elevation of individual value is different from simply an old-world, Eastern, collective viewpoint. It is, whether intentionally or not, a deeply Christian way of looking at things.
The Bible consistently holds up to us the message that love and service of God and others, along with the mastery of our own selfishness, leads to our deepest possible fulfillment. That pursuit of self is, literally, hell.
Jesus is our greatest example of setting aside self ambition in order to love and serve the undeserving and ungrateful Other. He himself refers to John the Baptist in Matthew 11 as the greatest man who ever lived. John was one whose humble life goal was to decrease his personal self in order that others’ view of God would increase. John dies impoverished in a prison cell. Not a Hollywood ending, to be sure. But, according to Jesus, his life, poured out in service to God and others, was the most wonderful life ever lived.
"He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less" (John 3:30, NLT).
Wag Those Tongues to God's Glory
If you haven't heard the Tyrolean Tongue Choir (from the Austrian Alps region of Tyrol) perform "a rumbling, a cappella chorus by flicking their tongues back and forth," frantically within their mouths, then you have clearly never truly experienced music! (Obviously spoken "tongue in cheek" LOL).
But seriously, it actually is a thing! Click here to listen to their moving version of "Moscow Nights," performed exclusively with their linguae naturales.
If you actually watch the video, you'll likely not get through it without either laughing or crigning. But if you close your eyes and just listen, it's actually quite entertaining.
Scripture has some pretty harsh words concerning the influence of the tongue.
"[T]he tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell" (James 3:5-6, ESV). ...
"But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison" (James 3:8, ESV).
But take heart, all is not darkness! If anything, it's a pretty mixed bag ...
"Death AND LIFE are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits" (Proverbs 18:21, ESV).
"With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God" (James 3:9, ESV).
We CAN learn to discipline our tongues for both our own good and the good of others.
"There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18, ESV).
"For 'Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit'" (1 Peter 3:10, ESV).
"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Ephesians 4:29, ESV).
"A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit" (Proverbs 15:4, ESV).
"Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble" (Proverbs 21:23, ESV).
Since the tongue can be such a duplicitous vessel, we must be sure to petition the Lord to "Set a guard, O Lord, over [our] mouths; keep watch over the door of [our] lips!" (Psalms 141:3, ESV). To do anything less, puts us in great peril of judgment. "I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36-37, ESV).
We can get a good chuckle out of the Austrian Tongue Choir. But it's such a riotously funny illustration of how the tongue CAN be used to make life more harmonious and pleasant.
Amidst the cacaphony of crassness, crudeness, cursing, and cruelty. Be the Austrian Tongue Choir, and wag those tongues to the rhythm of and to the glory of the grace of God!