Armageddon Plan

Daily Reading: Ecclesiastes 11-12

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. (Ecclesiastes 11.1-2)

Devotional Thought: As Lana and I approached retirement, we would talk to our financial adviser about various doomsday scenarios.  He would laugh and tell us, "I don't have an Armageddon Plan!"  That is so true, isn't it?  We don't know what troubles may befall us.  We don't know "what disaster may happen on the earth."  So, what are we to do?

The wise man of Ecclesiastes provides some unusual advice: "Cast your bread upon the waters..."  Wait!  What?  Cast it upon the waters?  Give a portion to seven?  How's that going to help me when disaster comes?

Jesus told a parable that illustrated how this works.  There was an 'unjust' manager who was getting fired.  He went around to the creditors of his employer and forgave their loans.  Then, when he lost his job, he was "welcomed into their homes."  Jesus was not commending the dishonest manager for dishonesty, he was simply pointing out that when we are generous, we will experience generosity.  It even works in this world's materialistic system.  How much more so in heaven!  Jesus then instructed, "Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings" (Luke 16.9).

Financial advisers may not have an "Armageddon Plan," but God does.  It's called generosity.  Then, "after many days" we will find that we have received a "good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over!"  (Luke 6.38).

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the things that you have given me.  Help me to be generous today, just as you have been generous to me.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 16.1-6

1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you. ”

3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.

4 The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.

6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.