One billion dollars or a relationship with Mark Zuckerberg?
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith. Thank you for joining us. This is Week 6.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well; sometimes, one topic leads into another)
Scripture Reading: James 1:22–25
Now, this question I’m about to present is about monetary value. So, if you’d rather meet somebody because they are on the same career path as you, and you’d want to learn how to stay happy, work better, etc. from them, then that is a different situation.
Here, we are assuming that making money is your goal, and the reason you would want to have a mentor/mentee relationship with one of these people is because you want to learn how to make money in that field.
It doesn’t have to be Mark Zuckerberg. Picture your favourite investor. I don’t have one, so I just went with the one the question was initially framed for.
A while ago I came across this same question. People enjoy asking questions like this to get a sense of how you reason.
The question was basically framed, “would you take a million (or a billion) dollars, or rather have a good relationship/conversation with your favourite investor (in this case, that “investor” was Mark Zuckerberg).
It could be tech, it could be fashion, it could be lifestyle, it could be the Arts…basically anybody who is doing extremely well financially in something that you wish to be doing.
I like to think that I’m a thoughtful person, so I thought very deeply about the usual adages and expressions we use in these conversations.
“Give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for day. Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for his whole life,”
Etc.
However, just as I was about to choose the timid option, I realised something that everybody already knows. We are all privy to this fact, although we sometimes aren’t aware of it.
The hard part is the doing.
Yes. Simple. Just remembering that fact made me say the truth to myself. I would rather take the million (or billion) than have a good relationship or whatever with Mark Zuckerberg.
One thing we always forget as human beings is the fact that doing what is right is actually the hard part. Doing what you know is right; what you know will help your life, is actually the hard part.
In fact, although we all place more emphasis on knowing the right thing to do, most people are still not reaping the benefits of that good knowledge because they are not doing the things that they know they are supposed to be doing.
Almost everybody reading this has probably read a good self-help book or two in their lives. Yet, not everybody can actually say that those books helped them at all because not everybody can honestly tell you that they did those things.
Jesus tells us a very insightful parable about the Sower who sowed seed in different terrains in Matthew 13. Now, if you go to verse 23, you will see something that is very revealing:
“But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty”. (KJV)
Some one hundred, some sixty, some thirty.
This is one of my favourite parables in scripture simply because, Jesus Christ clearly reveals that not everybody reaps the same level/amount of benefits from the Word. This is because not everybody who hears these sayings will actually do them (Matthew 7:24).
The reason I am really intrigued by this is, these people are on good ground! These people heard the Word, received it, understood it, and yet got varying results.
So, this is the rationale of my billion dollar decision:
Not everyone who hears what it takes to reach the top from their “idol” or role model will actually do what it takes.
We are all products of the decisions we made. Many of us have read the same books, studied at the same schools under the tutelage of the same instructors, watched the same inspirational videos…yet, we are all on different levels. We all understand differently, but most importantly, we all act based on what we understand very differently as well.
Many of us have heard the exact same things that our heroes and exemplars heard. Many of us even have access to more information than these people ever did. In fact, many of us could probably even give good speeches about the person’s motivating climb to the height of success.
What is the guarantee that you are going to meet Elon Musk, or Beyonce, or whoever, and actually have the discipline to follow through with their advice? Many of the people who have learned and practiced the most from these figures have never even met them physically once.
This is the same thing with the Word of God: the doing is the hard part. Fortunately (and unfortunately for many), the doing is where the results are.
There is something that we always hear as believers; “Let go and let God”. I think I get where it comes from, but many people have used statements like this to assume that faith is a very passive act.
Faith is not a passive act. Sometimes we get too used to seeing “letting go and letting God” as a strategy to evade spiritual responsibility.
Kingdom Labour is actually more akin to farming. I once heard a good illustration that basically said, although farming is about patience, that doesn’t mean farmers are just waiting for the crops to grow.
They are watering the plants, they are weeding the area, they are applying manure/fertilizers, pesticides….their form of patience is actually a very active kind. They are not waiting for the crop to grow; they know what must be done for the crop to grow, and so they do it and trust that the science of crop growth hasn't changed overnight.
We are not just supposed to let go and let God, we are supposed to let go of the world, so that we can hold on to the promises of God. We are supposed to not worry about how food will come, and instead, act like the farmer and actually do what makes food come (Matthew 6:32-33).
Faith is in doing. It’s not just hearing and nodding, and liking what you heard. The doing is where the results are.
Jesus once told a blind man to walk all the way to a pool and wash his eyes. Eyes that, from a natural standpoint, he had just blinded even more with spit and clay! (John 9:6–7).
Jesus once told a man with paralysis to rise up and walk. Jesus wouldn’t have had to say, “stand up”, if the man was already healed. The man would have jumped up on his own! So, Jesus actually told a man, whilst he was paralysed, to stand up (Luke 5:24–25).
Jesus told some people to fetch water to make wine. That is not a step one, step two or step three process in making wine. These people had to keep walking to a stream with vessels and filling the pots with water. They also had to take that same water that they knew wasn’t wine (they had literally just fetched it) to the MC to taste (John chapter 2).
Noah, in the Old Testament, was building an ark for rain! Rain that he had never seen before in his life. Talk about faith! This man had never seen rain in his life, and was told to build a boat to accommodate himself and animals from a deluge that probably took a century to actually happen (Genesis 6).
“Why do you call me Lord, when you do not the things that I say?” — Luke 6:46
The time that some of the disciples asked to sit on the left and right side of Jesus in heaven, He told them in simple terms, that they had no idea what that meant (Mark 10:36–38).
Can you drink of the same cup as Jesus?
Can you do the same things that Mark Zuckerberg did? Ignore your own passions, and friendships, and sometimes even self-care and hygiene just to chase the dream that you have?
I don’t think I can. However, I know I can take a billion dollars, and do right with it!
People may ask, why must we act? Faith is a belief right? So why must we do something? What then is the purpose of faith? What is the use of saying “I believe” if I am now supposed live a certain way to prove it? Can’t God see that I believe in my heart?
We will answer this in the next article, next week!
God be with ye till then!
