Sports & Money
A Game of Recovery
CBN.com
– In the 2004 film Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius, there's a scene in which the U. S. Open champion Walter Hagan plays against the younger Bobby Jones. Although Hagan has an erratic swing and seems error prone, he runs away with the match.
Afterwards, Hagan confides in Jones: "I don't always hit the ball straight, but you know what I've learned? Three bad shots and one good one still make par. Golf is a game of recovery."
And it's not just golf. Almost every year in college basketball's "March Madness" several seemingly impossible comebacks occur.
Sports fans can talk for hours about amazing comebacks. But the principle seems applicable across a broad range of life's experiences. For example, there’s even a comeback possible in your finances!
Of course, financial stewardship (and the investing duties that come with it) isn’t a game. It's quite serious. When we handle this responsibility well, we can help further God's kingdom, and earn a "Well done!" commendation and eternal rewards from our Savior.
Perhaps you've not gotten control of your spending, and consequently have a debt hill (or mountain!) to climb. Or you may be doing pretty well in that area, but you don't have much in the way of savings. Or perhaps you have some savings set aside in an IRA or 401(k) account, but you haven't done a very good job of choosing the investments that are best for you at this stage of your life.
It may be obvious I've been leading up to this: Being a good steward is -- if I may use the term for purposes of illustration -- a game of recovery. Sound Mind Investing exists to help Christians in this process. Our "Four Levels" framework helps you set biblical financial and giving priorities and stay focused on doing first things first. Our primary investing approach, Fund Upgrading, is an ongoing recovery strategy where we have specific guidelines in place that tell us when a fund is losing too much ground and needs to be replaced. In other words, we're constantly alert to recovering our performance edge.
I certainly made my share of mistakes in earlier years, but I got up and kept going; so can you. You might even want to take a few tips from the athletes who’ve learned how to recover from setbacks. If you listen to their interviews, there's a common thread that goes through their description of how they overcame their poor starts.
1. Let go of the past. They have a long-practiced and rather remarkable ability to put their failures behind them -- block them out -- and concentrate on the task immediately at hand.
2. Play the next play. The most important thing is to focus on what they can do now. They know they can't make up for their past mistakes all at once, but they can begin to regain ground bit by bit -- with a birdie on this hole or a basket on this trip down the floor.
3. Follow their training. They had received training over the years as to how to execute the task at hand, and they knew it was essential that they stay faithful to that training. This was no time for untested strategies or spontaneous innovations. They just needed to concentrate on doing simple things well, performing as they'd been taught.
4. Persevere. Essentially, this means repeating the first three steps over and over. It's not easy. It requires "a long obedience in the same direction." It's called being faithful.
If we invite the Holy Spirit to help us follow this pattern, we'll have a lot in common with the apostle Paul (who knew a thing or two about recovering from a bad start): "I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven" (Philippians 3:13-14, NLV).
Sound Mind Investing exists to help individuals understand and apply biblically-based principles for making spending and investing decisions in order that their future financial security would be strengthened, and their giving to worldwide missionary efforts for the cause of Christ would accelerate. In other words, we want to help you have more so that you can give more.
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