Invaluable Lessons

“The wise store up treasure and oil, but fools spend whatever they get” Prov.21:20

Great leaders know how to look at an opportunity and immediately determine whether they are going to take it or not. Why? Critical resources are scarce. You do not have all the resources to take all the opportunities. So if you take one opportunity you are going to miss another. The first principle of economics is that critical resources are scarce. Time is scarce. No matter how much you fast and pray you cannot have more that twenty-four hours in a day. Talent is scarce. Money is scarce. Gold is limited. God has determined the amount of gold on earth. I am not sure gold reproduces but even if it does, the raw material that reproduces it is scarce. Even if it is sand that becomes gold, sand is limited.

So you must always conserve and economize. People will abuse you and call you stingy. Ignore them and focus on being economical. In Nigeria, the Ijebu people are born economists. People call them stingy but I choose to look at them as being economical and learn from their ways.

Lesson one: Ijebu people never pay more than what is necessary for anything. My grandmother was an Ijebu woman and I think she always paid less than necessary. Growing up, one of the things I used to run away from was going to the market with her and I will tell you why. Her plan will be to buy tomatoes and the typical market setting has most of the people selling common goods in the same place. She would go to the first seller and through aggressive bargaining get a deal of eight naira for tomatoes that were originally going for twenty naira. But she would not buy there, she would check at least four other shops to see if she can get a better deal and eventually go back to the first shop.

I spent most of the time grumbling because back then I did not see the value of what she was doing plus I was the one carrying the bags. But she was teaching me an invaluable lesson through that process. The lesson is you have to economize your resources. The fact that you have money does not mean you should spend it. The only thing some of us know how to do with money is spend it. If that is the case, you are in trouble. God wants you to economize.

Thought: God is not prodigal with resources and you are His child.

Prayer: Precious Holy Spirit, please teach me to economize my resources, in Jesus Name.