New Career Strategies for a Changing World
Tom Shrader examines career challenges through Solomon's experience in Ecclesiastes, identifying five warning signs of career misery including lack of passion, instability, and no satisfaction. He offers five biblical strategies for navigating work: celebrating a modest lifestyle, finding enjoyable work, recognizing life's temporary nature, focusing on gratitude over lack, and seizing present opportunities rather than dwelling on the past.
“Needs multiply as they're met.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain (2008)
Recorded: February 14, 2008
Duration: 39 min
Themes: work, career, contentment, gratitude, wisdom, purpose, stewardship, discouragement, career transition, job dissatisfaction, young professional, mentor, retirement planning, workplace struggles, seeking purpose, mid-life crisis
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:17, Ecclesiastes 2:18, Ecclesiastes 2:19-21, Ecclesiastes 2:22, Ecclesiastes 2:23, Ecclesiastes 5:18, Ecclesiastes 2:24, Ecclesiastes 3:12, Ecclesiastes 3:22, Ecclesiastes 8:15, Ecclesiastes 5:19, Ecclesiastes 9:20, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Theological Themes: ecclesiastes, solomon's wisdom, biblical worldview, stewardship, god's sovereignty, temporal nature, divine purpose, spiritual discernment
Full Transcript
This is session four of what will be six sessions. We'll finish up then we'll take our summer break. The title of the series is "How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain." It's interesting, as I said, we developed this series in 1990. So it's been circling for a long time now, but it feels like the sucking is getting tighter.
Today we're looking at new career strategies. Now here's what's going to happen. Some of you the minute you saw that checked out because you're thinking, "Listen, I'm at the end of a career and I don't need this" or "I'm out of a career." Here's why these lessons are important.
Why These Lessons Matter for Everyone
Clark said he was just up to his granddaughter's high school graduation. People like that, young kids, young people you see at the coffee shop, people at church, people at the gym - they're going to ask you about life. We're finding this over and over again that there's a hunger and thirst from young kids to talk to people like you who've been through a lot and to get advice from you.
This is going to help you formulate some thoughts and be ready when that comes because it will come. You can have a significant impact in the lives of young men and women. They don't have to be relatives to you, but young men and women just by having some of this really at your fingertips and thinking it through.
We'll just follow the outline. There's no blanks on there. What you do need are the scripture references. I'll give them to you if you have Bibles. You can open them to the book of Ecclesiastes. We've been in the book of Job and the book of Ecclesiastes, so there's a certain heaviness to all of that.
How Career Thinking Has Changed
In the past we talked more about career. It seems now we talk more about jobs. In the past, the idea - and I always use my dad to the point you're probably tired of him as an illustration - but he in 1948 graduated from college on a Sunday, married on a Monday, went to Pikes Peak. My mom's sister still has the postcard my mom sent her from their honeymoon in Pikes Peak saying "I wish you were here," so I'm sure my dad was jacked about that. He came back on the train on a Sunday, went to work at the bank on a Monday in 1948, and retired from the bank in 1990-91. That, as you know, is just rare now.
In the old days you looked for income with a little bit of an upside. There was a participation. There was the idea of getting vested. There were opportunities for advancements within the companies. There was a lot of traveling around, a lot of corporate moves. You're going to go from here to here to here to here - prove yourself. There was the idea of long-term security. Come to work here. Again like my dad, there were thousands and thousands of people who just did that - went to work for a company, retired from the company.
There was the prospect of acquisition. That really hasn't changed - that's just accumulating, getting more stuff. Then there was the promise of the future. There was the idea that it was hopeful and bright.
A Different Mindset About the Future
I remember my father coming home one day when I was in high school. At the time I didn't understand it, but it's one of the things that exemplifies his thought process. A bank had come to him and offered him the presidency of the bank, and he said no. We were asking him, "I mean, why would you say no to that?" His answer was, "I think it's better for you boys if we stay here. There are four of us, so I think it's better for you boys. You know, you just went to this school, the boys are in this school. Lift up everything, move to another town - there's a lot of adjustment." But there was the idea that there was always this future that was bright.
Now you've got kids - part of it is the colleges that are cranking out degrees, but I'm not sure they're worth much. I mean, you got kids borrowing money to take a three-hour class in Beatles 101. It's stupid. Then they graduate and they're very pessimistic about the future, and maybe rightly so.
Five Helpful Questions
Here's what our helpful questions are - five of them. Do you have the career from hell? It could be the life from hell really.
Number one: You have no passion for your activity. Ecclesiastes 2:17: "So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun is grievous to me. It is all meaningless, a chasing after the wind."
What Solomon is writing - Solomon is a guy who wrote three books we have from him that are in the scripture. One is the Song of Solomon, which is biblical erotica really. Some of you didn't know it was there. Now you're flipping to the index to find out what is this. So Solomon writes that as a young man. Then he writes the book of Proverbs that are just exactly what the word says. But at the end of his life he writes the book of Ecclesiastes, which is his memoir in my mind.
In terms of explaining, at least part of it is God allows this guy Solomon to experience whatever you think would make you happy, and then he writes back and tells you that essentially that thing - with the key phrase, you're never going to stay in the book of Ecclesiastes if you don't understand the phrase "under the sun." He means in this horizontal plane. It's the key phrase - this earthly plane. He's saying, "Listen, I hated my life."
Three Ways to Learn
When it comes time to learn, there's three ways I think to do it. One is just an information dump. I was trying to research something the other day, saw somebody's name on a show. It's a bunch of rabbit trails - ended up reading a bunch of stuff. That's a way to learn. It's like every day Amazon truck or the UPS truck or FedEx stops at our house, and there's another book. They're just books there all the time. Went out last night about 8:30 - there was a little package, and I know I haven't ordered anything, so now Sandy's doing some stuff. We're getting ready to go away for summer, and she's got two or three things she's really aggressively researching. So that's one way. The second way...
The second way is by personal experience. Go and do it now. Very effective. The problem with that is the tuition is oftentimes pretty high. It's trial and error. The third way is by benefiting from others' experience. That's a great way to learn. That's why I love reading the biographies. Although the History Channel, I'm not sure that the History Channel is now swamp people and American pickers. I don't know what happened to the history, but you learn here's what they did. Here's what they learned. That's Solomon that we're going to try to get here. We're going to learn from his issues.
Have a Passion for What You're Doing
So the first is to have a passion for what you're doing. When I was coming in this morning, I was listening to the radio, or maybe it was television. It might have been the audio from Fox, I don't know. But the guy was interviewing Archie Manning and then the Harbaugh brothers' dad. I can't remember his name—might be Jack Harbaugh. They were asked about Father's Day, and they were asking Jack about coaching. He said my first coach I worked for gave me a bit of advice, and it was really good advice. When I heard it, I thought this is good advice not for coaching, for life.
He said number one, you better have a passion for this coaching. Number two, you need to work really hard. And number three, you need to marry wisely. Well, there's a lot of truth in all of that. Here's that passion: if you don't have any passion for what you're doing, that's like a death sentence.
Understand You Have No Guarantee of Stability
Number two, to understand you have no guarantee of stability. Ecclesiastes 2:18: "I hated all things I toiled for under the Sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me." Everything in your house will one day be in a state sale.
I'm driving down—it must be like big garbage pickup, like once a month in our neighborhood they have the stuff where you put out, I don't know, you'd have to see it—but they put out big stuff. I'm driving down yesterday and there's a chest of drawers. There's an old television. There's all this stuff sitting out for somebody to pick up. All I could think is one day people were saving that. That was something that was really important. Nothing wrong with this, but to understand that you don't have any stability.
I remember the RTC. The RTC is in town. A friend of mine is working on the disposition of property, and he had about 40 employees. They told him, "You got 30 days and then we'll dissolve all of this. We'll be done in 30 days." Imagine motivating that staff. There were two gals in there that were unbelievable. They were serving like they owned the business. I called a couple of friends. I said, "I don't know if you're looking to hire anybody, but I saw two gals today that were amazing." Think about that—the lack of stability.
You Have No Control Over the Results
Number three, you have no control over the results. Ecclesiastes 2:19-21: "And who knows whether he will be a wise man or fool. Yet I have control over all my work in which I've poured my effort and skill under the Sun. But it's meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the Sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who hasn't worked for it."
We have a building on our campus at church. I'm at the Gilbert Campus. We have the best building, my favorite building on the campus. One of my favorite buildings anywhere. It's called the Commons. It's a great building to sit in. Love the architecture. I love the building.
When we first opened it, every Monday, there were three guys who met in there. They would take a table, and they had the largest laptops I've ever seen. I don't know where they got them. I've never seen anything like them. They were the largest screens on these laptops. After about the third week, I couldn't handle it anymore. I went over and said, "Hey, boys." None of them went to church there. They just thought it was a really cool place to meet, which is perfect. We'll take their money. One lived in Florence, and one lived in Anthem, and one lived in Chandler, and this was kind of their version of the middle.
So I went over, and I said, "What are you guys doing?" They said, "We're working on some new software." I said, "What is it?" They said, "Oh, we can't tell you." I said, "Well, what is it? I mean, everybody says they can't tell me, but they always tell me. What is it?" They said, "Well, we can't tell you. Here's what we can tell you. In this industry, there is one software that dominates this industry. This software, when we finish it, will make that obsolete."
All I could think of is there's some guy somewhere who's got this software who's thinking, "Man, I've arrived. I've worked hard. I'm in place. I've got these contracts." But along comes just a new piece of software. You don't have any control over that.
You've walked into an office, my assumption, and you've said, "I'm smarter than him. I work harder than him. I know more than him. Out of 50 salespeople, I'm 48 and he's two. How can that be?" You've had it in your own life, where you've worked and worked. I've done this. You work and work and work and work and work and nothing happens. You can't make it happen. One day, you're on your way out. You've got everything and the phone rings. You don't even want to answer it, but you put it down, you pick it up. You say, "Hey, this is Tom." "Yeah, Tom, do you sell widgets?" "Yeah." "Well, I need a couple million widgets." You've had that happen. There's an illusion of control, but you don't really have control.
You Have No Sense of Satisfaction
Number four, you have no sense of satisfaction. Ecclesiastes 2:22: "What does a man get for all his toil and anxious striving with which he labors?" The implied answer is there's no satisfaction in this. Madonna, and—
I enjoy Madonna. I mean, you're not supposed to say that in church, I guess, but I enjoy Madonna, some of Madonna. I like her voice. Some of her stuff is goofy, but she wrote a song a few years ago, and the title of the song was The American Life.
Let me read this to you. This is the lyric: "I tried to be a boy. I tried to be a girl. I tried to be a mess. I tried to be the best. I guess I did it wrong. That's why I wrote this song. This type of modern life, it's not for me. This type of modern life, it's for free. So I went into a bar looking for sympathy, a little company. I tried to find a friend. It's more easily said. It's always been the same. I tried to stay ahead. I tried to stay on top. I tried to play the part, but I forgot just what I did it for and why I wanted more."
This goes on and on, but she closes it this way: "I got a lawyer and a manager, an agent and a chef, three nannies and assistant, a driver and a jet, a trainer and a butler, a bodyguard or five, a gardener and a stylist. Do you think I'm satisfied? I'd like to express my extreme point of view. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Jew. I'm just living out the American dream, and I just realized that nothing is what it seems."
The Emptiness of Success
Now, it took her a long time to get to where the Rolling Stones got fast: "I can't get no satisfaction." And Peggy Lee, looking around—some of you old Peggy Lee fans—"If this is all there is, then what'd she say? Let's bring on the booze and have a ball."
So I look around. I have a friend and a great guy, and we hang around with a lot of young guys who are church planters, who are really ambitious. He was leaving here, moving to San Francisco, and we did a meeting with all the young guys and said, "Tell us what you learned."
So he said, "Here are the 10 things I learned." Number 10 was this: "I've been to the mountaintop. I've seen where this is headed, and it's okay. The dog caught the car." That's when I expressed this so poorly, and sometime one of the guys repeated it back. They do it all the time, but repeated it in a meeting yesterday. I need to find a better way to say this, but we need to understand that so much of what we do doesn't really matter.
Now, we approach it like it matters. Somebody asked the other day, "How's Sandy?" I said, "Sandy's great." "How's being married?" "Really good." "How is it compared to the first one?" Well, I'm smart enough to not go down this road very far, but I said, "I can tell you this: A lot of things are way better."
Now, hang with me. This is a big deal, because I'm better. A lot of things that—I mean, Susan and I are young people. I've told you this story. We're married 90 days, and I came home and said, "I'm out of here. I married you to make me happy. I'm not happy."
Think about it when you talk about grandparenting. How many people have you said, "I love grandparenting because it's a second chance"? What it is is that you're learning. It's not Sandy versus Susan. It's you're learning. You're growing in this stuff. All those things that I would make issues with Susan, I don't even think about anymore. It's just growth.
The Inescapable Pressure of Life
Here's the fifth thing. You got very quiet right there, wasn't it? That has the potential to be a real powerful teaching moment, but there's so much emotion packed into that. I'm trying to think how to talk about that better, but that was a test drive, and I'm not sure what I learned there.
Number five: you have no escape from the pressure of life. Ecclesiastes 2:23: "All his days, his work is pain and grief, and at night, his mind doesn't rest." Your life has made the alarm clock obsolete, because you're up way before it. There's no rest. Your mind's spinning. You're thinking about the next deal.
New Strategies for Living
New strategies, number one. When I say strategies, I'm going to give you a definition here. Webster's Dictionary changed the definition on attitude. It included some things that were cocky, arrogant, something to do with flight, but they used to have as one of the definitions—and it's not in there now. It's in my dad's dictionary, the one he took through college. Attitude was "a grid by which you evaluate all of life," an attitude.
What I'm saying to you is, I want to give you the grid by which you evaluate all of life.
Number one: celebrate the freedom of a modest lifestyle. Ecclesiastes 5:18a: "Then I realized that it's good and proper for a man to eat and drink, to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him. This is his lot."
The Influence of Larry Wright
I was in one of those reflective moods the other day, and I was trying to think about the people who have been an influence in my life and what I can do to encourage them and edify them. Then I realized almost all of them are dead.
So today's my dad's birthday. He died six years ago this July. Obviously he impacted me a lot, good and bad, but probably no human has had more impact on who I am today than Larry Wright. I would say he would be at the top of the list.
When God saved me in 1980, I became a follower of Christ, but a disciple of Larry really. There's some danger in that, but I was smart enough to understand the danger in that. So I think it's in a proper place.
So I literally—Larry was frail. He was very needy. He needed people all the time to carry his stuff. So I—you've heard me say it—everywhere that Larry went, Tom was sure to go. I went on trips with him. I carried his briefcase. I did all the stuff that you associate as the most meaningful tasks. I plugged in his tape recorder. I hauled his tapes around.
We're driving one day and we're talking, and I said, "Larry, I just noticed something the other day." I said, "It doesn't matter what you're teaching, that lesson has in it something on marriage." I'm telling you, if you go on AbundantLife.org or whatever his website is, and you pull up a tape, pick the most unlikely—go to Leviticus chapter 2, verse 4—and whatever that section is in that 45 minutes, he'll
When I became a Christian, I started to look around and I realized something about debt and calling. I heard this statistic—I don't know if it's right, but it serves me well. They said 90% of people who desire to go to the mission field never get there because of personal debt. Now let that sink in. These are people who say, "God's called me to go to this." We can dispute the accuracy of the call, but these are people who say, "God's called me to do this." Nine out of 10 of them don't get there because I needed a new car. I needed a bigger house. I had this college debt.
This college debt is coming down the pike the same way all that housing was. A trillion dollars in debt, at least 50% of it in default. Guys getting degrees, spending $100,000 to get a degree in anthropology and going to work at the shirt shack. I mean, with no possible way of paying it back. And more alarmingly, they don't even feel compelled to pay it back.
Sandy does a lot of work with young girls, especially with girls that are post-college and they're at the beginning of a career. She's been talking to them a lot about freedom, but a lot of them want to get married. I found this yesterday and gave it to her: Madonna's 55, her boyfriend's 22. Tina Turner's 75, her boyfriend's 40. J-Lo's 42, her boyfriend's 26. Mariah Carey's 44, her husband's 32. You're still single? Relax, your boyfriend hasn't been born yet.
The Wisdom of Jim Elliott on Simple Living
Sandy's meeting these young girls and spending time with them, and it's something that we've talked about for a long time with the guys—it's freedom at 50. It's not making these decisions that encumber you for the rest of your life.
Jim Elliott, some of you know that name. Jim Elliott wrote a diary that his then—at that time, fiance, at that time, girlfriend, even pre-girlfriend, then girlfriend, then fiance, then wife—took that diary, added comments, and published it under the title Shadow of the Almighty. Have any of you read that? No one in the room. That's interesting.
Jim Elliott's diary. And here's this 21-year-old man, here's what he writes. He's at the time when he's beginning to contemplate dating Elizabeth Elliott. He writes this: "I've been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effect of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately, but with a wife come Peter the pumpkin eater's proverbial dilemma. He must find a place to keep her. And most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So a wife demands a house, a house in turn requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, etc. A house with these things must soon become a home, children the intended outcome."
The Principle That Changes Everything
Now listen to this—I don't know, you write stuff down. You should write this down, and then go down to the tattoo parlor and have them put it right here in your arm. This is so profound. This is huge. Here's what he writes: "Needs multiply as they're met."
Now I want to come back to it, but here's his logic. A car demands a garage, a garage land, land a garden, a garden tools, tools need to be sharpened. So our thinking is, I have a need, I meet the need, I'm done with that.
Sandy and I were in Houston, and we had a great time there, spoke at a church, two men's events. We stayed with a wonderful couple, and every morning we had coffee, and what they had were one of the one cup things, I don't know what they're called. I put the little thing in, I close it down, I get a cup of coffee. Sandy said, "This is nice, it's fast, the coffee's hot, you like it hot, this is nice." I said, "Yeah, it's nice, whatever."
We got home, and Sandy made her trip to Costco, and came back, and she said, "Happy anniversary, we got one of these." Oh, that's perfect. So we set it on the counter, on the counter there, right where you'd expect, right, perfect spot. Well, you have to find all of these little cup things now. Now you got to store those. Well, they didn't fit in the cupboard, you go up, you pull one out, they all fall out. So we need to find a thing to put it on the counter, but to get it on the counter, we got to move the knife. Here's what's happening—we're going to have to remodel the kitchen to find a place to put these cups. And I'm all for it. We are remodeling, starting July 15th, not based on that. But that's how, all of a sudden, I have a need.
The Real Issue Behind Our Needs
So I have a need for a car. But I can find a car anywhere from three or four grand to two or $300,000. And somewhere in that psyche, it's not about transportation anymore. It's about comfort. It's about prestige. It's about pulling up to the club and everybody goes, "Wow, look at that." Now, I always wondered how the Amish did it, because they're all dressed alike. There must be one that has a little thing they hang on the car, so I don't know.
I have friends, and this is their budget. This is how they budget. They get what they want, they go to the counter, they give them this card. If they scan it and say approved, they say "we can afford it, it's in our budget." But the fallacy in that thought process is what Solomon identifies, I think it's chapter five, and it just—I just remember reading this and going, guys, this is me. The more you have, the more you spend. The beauty of a simple life.
What the Wealthy Say About Wealth
Let me read you quotes from four rich guys. Vanderbilt: "The care of $200 million is enough to kill anyone, there's no pleasure in it." Here's the problem with these quotes, by the way. As I read them, you're going, "Well, I know I could," and I understand that. John Jacob Astor said, "I'm the most miserable man on earth."
John D. Rockefeller said, "I have many millions, but it hasn't brought me any happiness." Andrew Carnegie said, "Millionaires seldom smile." Henry Ford said, "I was happier when I was doing a mechanic's job." So I'm a big advocate of the simple life. The problem is I can't tell you what that is, but the fact that you can afford something doesn't mean you should buy it.
Find a Job You Can Love
Number two: find a job you can love. Ecclesiastes 5:18 says, "Then I realized it's good and proper for a man to eat and drink, to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor." To find a job that you can enjoy. This whole thing of a job becomes really important. Statistically, I think the Wall Street Journal said that you'll spend on average 55 hours at work. I didn't say 55 hours of work, because I don't think people work when they're there, but you're at work 55 hours a week. Let's say you sleep 40, give yourself some time for eating and grooming and travel. There's not much time left of disposable time.
So this job becomes something that you need to see as an extension of the ministry that God's given you to serve the people around you, but to find something that you love to do. I was talking to a gal and I said, "Where do you work?" She said, "Starbucks." I said, "Do you like it?" She said, "No. I love it. I love this job. I love making drinks. I love seeing the same people every day." It's cheers. It's an old bar, really. It's just coffee.
When there was a Borders at 24th and Camelback, there was a guy in there by the name of Bob. I love to see Bob. I said, "Bob, tell me about yourself." He worked at some big company and he retired. He said, "I love books and I love to go into a bookstore, and I thought I'll get a job here." He said, "This is the best minimum wage job in the country. I love this."
A Word of Caution About Career Changes
Now there's a danger in here. I can't remember one of our series where we talked at length about it. I was talking about finding a job you love, if not quit. A girl came in the next week and said, "I did what you told me to do." I said, "Well, what is that?" She said, "I quit my job." I said, "Well, do you have another job?" "No." "Do you have any money?" "No." I said, "Baby, this is a slow, gradual process."
Let me read you here. I'm going to shotgun some stuff at you. They're all from the book of Ecclesiastes: verses 2:24, 3:12, 3:22, 8:15. Listen to this repeated theme. "Nothing is better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in work." 3:12: "Nothing better than everyone might eat and find satisfaction in his toil." 3:22: "Nothing better than for a man to enjoy his work." 8:15: "Nothing better than to eat and drink and in all his days of life that God gives him to enjoy his work."
Everything Is Temporary
Number three on your outline, Ecclesiastes 5:18c: "To find this during the few days of life God has given you." Key point: it becomes that attitude, that grid by which you evaluate life. It's to move from the cognitive knowledge of it to it affecting your life, and that is that everything is temporary.
A friend of mine gave me this a few years ago. It's a fax. Nowadays it'd be an email, but it was a fax, October 7th, 1991, from the home office to all the employees. Let me read it to you. It's about a guy we're going to call him Bob. "I regret that I have to inform you that Bob passed away over the weekend. Bob was an employee of the company for 45 years, and I'm sure He'll be missed a great deal. I talked to His wife, and she's planning no public service for Bob. She's asked that since neither she nor Bob have a favorite charity, if you want to give something in memory of Bob, donate it to your favorite charity in His memory. If you'd like to send a card to her, here's her address."
Let me tell you what this just said. Bob was here 45 years, He's dead. See if you can find a replacement, but stay within budget. That's essentially what they did. Here's Bob, and this poor sap couldn't even make up a charity to give to. I remember when I read that, I thought this is so real and so stark. "Regret to inform you, Bob's passed away. He was here 45 years. I'm sure we'll miss Him a great deal. Talk to His wife, not going to do any service or anything." Not worth thinking about, and He doesn't have a charity.
This is all temporary. This is a temporary assignment. "Momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison because we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen because the things that are seen are temporary." And yet we approach them like this is real and this is permanent.
Focus on What You Have
That's the fourth thing: focus on what you have instead of what you lack. Ecclesiastes 5:19: "When God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables Him to enjoy them, to accept His lot and be happy, this is a gift from God."
I'm going to tell you this all together with one illustration. Sandy and I are walking around Coronado. The problem going to Coronado for me, I have two problems. One, going over that bridge and I see those high rises, I think of when I was a loan banker and we were getting offers for one bedrooms in there at $30,000, two bedrooms at $40,000, three bedrooms at $50,000. And now it's about a million dollars a bedroom. That's one bad part. The second bad part is I know going over that I have to come back. And it hits me the minute I get there.
So Sandy and I are walking around, but last summer when we were in Coronado, I was so sick I barely got out of bed. But I was feeling good. We walked all over the island. She said, "You know, this is beautiful." I said, "It is." I said, "We ought to live here. Why don't we buy the crummiest house on this island?" She said, "That'd be great. I can fix it up."
So we're walking and I see the crummiest house on the island, 700 square feet. I said, "Sandy, could we live in 700 square feet?"
She said, "I think we do now. We just go to the bedroom and the great room and the kitchen. We never go to this room we use as a study. We use the other rooms now, but we could condense them." So 700 square feet, it was $800,000. I said, "Well, I probably can't afford this." But I'm thinking we could live in 700 square feet, but we have 1,800 square feet. That means I have 1,100 square feet that I'm paying tax on, furnishing, cooling, that I don't need.
It's to find that satisfaction and then to look at your life and see how much stuff creep have you allowed in your life. And I was so focused on the house I didn't have that I forgot to thank God for all the great things He's given me. It'll beat any comparison.
Bury the Past and Seize the Day
Number five, bury the past and seize the day. Ecclesiastes 5:20 says, "He seldom reflects on the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of heart." It's not to say don't learn from the past. It's to say don't live in the past. You can't control or change the past and you can't control the future.
This all sounds like a bumper sticker today, but you can't change the past. You can't control the future. Probably can't control much beyond 8:15 today. So why am I worried about that? Enjoy the things that God's given me. We put it in the context of careers, but it's really all of life.
Passing These Principles On
If you had the chance, my guess would be most of you could tell us how not to do these things. That would be my guess. But you can take just that list, just that last thing, the new strategies, those five points, you could take those and you can sit down with nieces, nephews, guys at the coffee shop, gals at the gym, people in the neighborhood. If you can begin early on to see the advantage of a modest lifestyle and a job you can enjoy.
I meet with what seems to be hundreds of people who are miserable in their job and every time I ask them, "If you're miserable in this job, why do you do it?" what do they answer? What's their answer to that? "I need the dough." Well, you need the dough because you violated the first principle often of a modest lifestyle.
A Personal Reflection
I got online and said, "I think I'm going to go home. I'm going to try to talk my mom into letting me drive her down to see her sister." It's totally selfish. I haven't seen my aunt in a long time, but I just have memories of those little towns and driving down and I just want to see it again. So I got online, Sheraton, Iowa Real Estate and I found a three bedroom, two bath on an acre, $17,500. Now, I don't know what it's like inside, probably needs a little work, but I thought, isn't that different?
How much of my life is filled with stuff that I've said as I get it, I don't really need this. And here you go: needs multiply as they're met. We're going to pick up right on that spot for next week.
Father, help us see the truth of this incorporated into our life. God, help us be so mindful of the gifts You've given us that we don't spend our day thinking about the things we don't have and miss the blessings that You've given us in this life. Father, thank You for the men and women in this room who get up early on a Thursday morning. I pray that that time is valuable time that Your Spirit takes these words and applies them to our heart. God, let us be different walking out of here than when we walked in. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.