4. The Law of Patience

 

Between the time of sowing and the time of harvesting, there is always a waiting period. A clever farmer will not sow the seed into the ground today and dig it up the next day. He waits until it is time to harvest the fruits. In between, he has to fertilise and water the seeds.

How do we inherit the promises of God?

 

Hebrews 6:11-12; “We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”
Paul wants us to be diligent to the very end and while waiting, we inherit the promises of God through faith and patience. The word ‘diligence’ means hardworking. We have to keep on working hard until the end, until the harvest is ready to be reaped. There is no ‘get rich fast’ scheme in this world. Those who want to get rich overnight often fall into a trap and ended up with nothing. The Bible warns us against such greed to be rich fast without hard works.

 

Proverbs 28:20 says that “a faithful man will be richly blessed but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.”

 

There is a penalty to pay for those eager to get rich quickly.

 

At times, this will lead to poverty as in Proverbs 21:5; “The plans of the diligent leads to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

 

The NKJ Version says ‘the plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty’. It has the word ‘surely’ meaning ‘definitely’ or ‘for sure’. It is a guarantee. It takes time to move from a position of little to many in riches. It is definitely not an overnight event. It is both a promise of reward for those who work diligently over time and a warning of penalty for those who go through the wrong ways to be rich immediately.

 

A true investor does not work for his money but puts his money to work for him. He will invest and put his money to work over a period of time by choosing the right investments looking at the potential returns, the management, the values of the company, their vision and mission, and etc, not just the past historical numbers of profits made. If you are not such investor, then you are a speculator. A speculator is a gambler who hopes to strike it right the first time. It may not be so all the time.

 

The Bible also talks about money dishonestly gained will dwindle away, out of your hand although you have gained it. But those who work and save his money little by little, will see his money grow.

 

This is found in Proverbs 13:11; “Dishonest money dwindles away but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”

 

 

 

How do we grow our money little by little? In today’s environment, we are looking at a proper saving plan. We have to develop a proper saving ethic, a good saving ethic. There are basically only two types of saving plan:

 

A. Put and Take

 

You put your money into the bank and hoping to save it. Soon the money grows but then something happens and you have to dig into your bank account. You take your money out to make payment. This cycle repeats itself over and over again. Your bank account is like a yo-yo, going up and down.

 

B. Put and Keep

 

You put your money into a saving plan and lock it in. This is the miracle of compound interest. Do you know how long does it take for your money to double? Any financial planner will be able to tell you about the Rule of 72 which you can calculate to know how long it takes for your money to grow double. Take for example, the current interest rate today is 10%. You take 72 divided by 10 and you get 7.2 years. It takes 7.2 years to receive back the double amount you have invested initially.

 

What then should be a Christian’s proper ethic towards money? For us, we put aside 10% for tithing (for God), 10% for our own expenses, and the remaining 80% to pay the bills and expenses. This is a good saving ethic to teach ourselves and our children from young. Children when taught young, will grow and prosper in life as they learn to give back to God and set aside money for other purposes and saving. This is the law of rectification. There was an experiment done once on a group of children using lollipops. There were several children put together in a room. In the middle of the room, there was a container of lollipops. The children were told not to eat the lollipops and they were left alone in the room with the lollipops. The scientists then watched and video the reactions of the children in the room. One child took the lollipop and looked at it from all angle. Another child took a step further. He took the lollipop and removed the wrapper in order to take a better look at the lollipop. While another child, took the lollipop, removed the wrapper, and pretended to lick it and imagined its taste. And another child, simply whack at the lollipop and happily eating his share of the lollipop.

 

The scientists then returned to the room and rewarded those children accordingly to those who obeyed with an extra lollipop. Ten years later, they called back the same children to find out how they performed in life. Those children who followed instructions were found to do better in life and were successful compared to the other group. This is what we meant by the law of rectification. The successful children learn how to delay their desires, plan their steps and did well. Which one do you belong to? How do you handle the money placed in your hands? Save, invest or spend it all?

 

 

 

The Law of Prosperity is in the part 5.