In early October I was visiting with my very best friend from college, Eric, who has gone on to become an ocular plastic surgeon in Portland, Oregon.  We met in Rochester where he was participating in a week of training at Mayo Clinic.  The primary purpose of our meeting was to spend time together and have fun renewing our friendship.  Before getting together I also explained that I’m raising support for my ministry at House of Prayer and we agreed to discuss it. 

Our time together was wonderful, but through our conversations regarding support, I was heartbroken to learn that Eric has lost his faith.  It hurt so much, just so much, to hear that, but we were able to discuss it candidly which was, I thought, at least a good step going forward.  As it turns out, Eric is not going to support the church.  No surprise there, given the condition of his faith.

As we happened to be talking about money, Eric told me a story about his cousin David, one of the more fascinating stories I have heard recently.  Cousin David grew up a bright child in a middle class family and was able to achieve an MBA from Harvard.  From there, he went to work for Oracle as, I don’t know, a businessman of some sort.  Yet he knew what he was looking for: the opportunity to make a fortune in a Silicon Valley startup.  Hard work and prudent networking provided the opportunity. 

Cousin David met another Oracle Employee who had previously made between 10 and 20 million in a startup business and was looking to turn that into a greater fortune by creating a business software company.  With his wealth and his idea, he went to work at Oracle, looking for the right people with whom to start this business.

As I understand it, employees in a startup are underpaid relative to the market value for their skills, but they are offered “stock options,” which, if the company succeeds, can be worth millions. And apparently, there is a formula for these offerings.  The first one in is offered the most in stock options, say 10% or something, the second might get 8 1/2% or whatever, on down the line, until the people at the end are offered a percent of a percent.  Meanwhile, the enterprising entrepreneur who started the company maintains a controlling interest in the company stock.  These stock options might be sold to the employees at a penny a share.

As the story goes, Cousin David became the second guy in on this business software startup, was given the opportunity to purchase 10,000 stocks in the company at a penny each (or some such), then worked his tail off for a few years to see the company succeed.  When the stock went public, the initial offering was around $7 a share, which is a dramatic success.  Over the course of time, the stock peaked around $120 a share, which is a fantastic profit in stocks bought for a penny each.  As the stock rose, peaked, and declined, Cousin David judiciously sold a certain percent of his shares every quarter.  When the dust settled, he had netted around $160 million or so. 

He now lives in a big home overlooking San Francisco… etc, etc.  He pushes a button in his living room and a wall-size plasma screen rises up out of the floor.  Additionally, he has a $15,000 coffee/espresso/cappucino machine in his kitchen with tubes directly to the milk and cream in the fridge – premium drinks at the push of a button.

As I listened to Eric describe Cousin David’s lifestyle and wealth, my stomach churned.  All I could think of was IJM and the victims of human trafficking.  How can someone have so much when others have so little.

But that feeling didn’t last long.  The Spirit of God brought a remarkable level of clarity.

The fact is, compared to the victims of sex trafficking, I myself am fabulously wealthy.  What’s worse, if my salary were to double, there’s almost no way my lifestly would remain the same so I could give the rest of the money away.  I began to see that I am no better than Cousin David, and may indeed be worse: I should know better.

One of the reasons Eric told me about Cousin David may have been his perception that I saw him as some sort of golden ticket, or a Cousin David of sorts – someone I’m close to who is fabulously wealthy.  You know, my best friend from college makes it to the big time as a surgeon and now he’s going to write big checks and keep HOP solvent, etc…  Well, clearly I had hoped that he would support us. 

As I’m raising support, I never know the reality of anyone’s financial affairs, so before calling anyone, I try to become agnostic about whether or not they will choose to give.  Typically in America, people with the greatest incomes also have the greatest levels of debt and are the least likely to give generously.  That is something one does not know before calling and it is wise not to speculate on.

Furthermore, I’ve been raising support long enough to know that how much someone makes usually has very little to do with how generous they are.  Generosity is the outflow of a gracious, loving character and the ability to make money is not necessarily intertwined with those qualities.  As we’ve been supported by people with more money than Eric and as we’ve been supported by people with less, I have become a little more dependent on God.  God is our golden ticket.  My trust is not in people.  My trust is not in the process.  My trust is in God (or at least I hope!).

But what do I do with my own greed, my own materialism, my own feverish cries for more, more, more?  Well, the thing I have intended to do for years, but have not yet done, is to set a budget and stick to it, pledging to God that whatever comes in over the budget will be given to fund his mission in the world.  It’s the only reasonable solution, in my mind, to creeping consumerism and the idolatry it entails.  But I must do it.