Abundance and Famine...be wise - Bryan Hillard, Youth Pastor

Like you I’m sure, there are a few stories in the Bible that I love that stick out to me perhaps more than others. There are three or four Bible stories that I consider my favorite. I love the story of Ruth and her faithfulness, I love reading about Daniel and his courage even in the most difficult situations and certain death, I love following the transition from Saul to Paul, but probably my favorite story in the Bible is on the life of Joseph in Genesis.

I can find countless life lessons and examples of how to demonstrate Godly living in the book of Genesis through Joseph. You see an average man with a troubled family life change the entire world simply by being faithful to God through every situation no matter how difficult it is.

One story from Genesis about Joseph has really stuck out to me in this trying time of the Corona Virus. The people of Egypt were in a situation like the United States for the last three years. They were living in a period of overall great prosperity. One night, as you can read in Genesis 41:1-8, the king of Egypt had a dream that he didn’t understand. He was standing by the Nile river and watched 7 fat cows get consumed by seven thin cows. He didn’t understand this dream. One man in Egypt at the time was able to interpret it however and that was Joseph. He told the King that the dream meant that there would be seven years of prosperity, followed by seven years of a great famine. In Genesis 41:33 he tells the king to choose someone with wisdom and insight and put him in charge of the country. He goes on to tell him to collect and save food from when the times are good, to prepare themselves for when the times are bad. Due to this advice, the King appoints Joseph as the governor of Egypt.

In my life, I have personally gone through periods of prosperity and famine similar to what Joseph prophesied would happen in Egypt. Some of you may not know this, but I joined the Marines 15 days after I graduated from High School. In the very month that I graduated, I was on a plane heading to bootcamp. You wouldn’t believe it based what you hear from political heads, but you are surprisingly well paid while you are in the military. I mean the salary itself isn’t that great, but when your food is paid for, your housing is paid for, your health insurance is paid for and you are only 18 years old, getting 700 dollar paychecks with no real bills is a lot of money. It’s a ton of money when you consider that you are regularly deploying to areas of the world where you can’t spend any money at all and it just racks up in your bank account. I remember when I deployed to Afghanistan at the age of 19. I was there for over seven months. In that seven months, I spent less than 10 dollars. I bought a bottle of Gold Bond foot powder from a store in Germany on my way to Afghanistan, and bought a Gatorade seven months later at a base in Afghanistan where we were waiting on the plane to fly us out of the country. Like the people of Egypt, I was in a time of great prosperity financially. I remember going to an ATM the day I got back to America just to check my bank balance.

Unlike the advice of Joseph, I did not prepare for the possibility of a financial famine. Within 48 hours of getting back, I bought a beautiful fully loaded Chevy Silverado. I paid for half of it upfront and the other half was what felt like a tiny 450 dollar a month truck bill that now also had to be insured. I bought a new i-phone, a new laptop and if I remember right, a nearly 200 dollar pair of shoes. A few months after getting home I was just as broke as I was before deploying to a combat zone. Fortunately because I was still well paid, I was able to afford all these things while I was still in the military. However, instead of storing up for hard times, I simply lived hand to mouth with my money. When I got out of the military, instead of having enough money to buy a small house in cash if I would have saved up, I got out of the Marines with less than 500 dollars in my bank account.

This is when my period of famine began. I got a job when I got out working landscaping for 10 dollars an hour. Only now, I had to buy food, pay rent and get insurance. I was smart enough to get rid of my truck and bought a more affordable Kia Soul that got way better gas mileage, but sure enough, a few months later I couldn’t even afford that. I can remember letting my phone bill frequently become late enough that they would shut off my phone, I can remember not being able to make my motorcycle payment first (that was another impulse purchase I made before I got out of the military). After realizing that I could be up to 60 days late on my motorcycle payment before they would try to take it, the next payment in my life I decided to become late on was my car. I remember parking it at my friend’s house and walking home after work in case they tried to take it. I lived my life like that for a while, until I was in a bad enough situation to start following Joseph’s advice.

It wasn’t until I got married and Lorna and I had our beautiful daughter that I was in a bad enough situation financially to wake up and learn from Joseph’s advice. Lorna and I were living in a really crappy apartment with me being at least 60 days behind on my car payment whenever we decided, this place is unsafe and not big enough for us having 2 kids. We found a place that wasn’t incredible, but was at least in a safe neighborhood, and I remember having to fill out a credit check with the landlord and driving home knowing my irresponsibility in life would probably cause us to not be able to live in safety with a baby and a small child. I remember driving in the car home from seeing this new place and confessing to my wife how irresponsible I had been and I vowed to her that I would dig myself out of this situation and never let myself get there again.

Believe it or not, I called the landlord up and had a very honest conversation about how irresponsible I had been in the past. I explained to him that having a kid and wanting to give it a better life had changed me and I vowed to him that no matter what showed up on my credit check, that I would never be late on another bill again. He allowed us to move in.

I wasn’t making great money at the time, I had just gotten a job as a server at Olive Garden, but even though my money income wasn’t much better, I began living a lifestyle similar to what Joseph was suggesting to the king, I saved. First I caught up on all my bills and did not spend an unessential penny until that happened. I somehow managed to find someone who would pay everything I owed on my motorcycle and even a couple hundred dollars beyond that. Once I was current on all of my bills I got an envelope. I was paid cash daily being a server and once I made enough money for my bills, I put all the extra money I had in that envelope until I could put it in a bank. Within a year or two of saving, I had enough money in the bank to pay all my bills for six months if I ever lost my job and as a family, my wife and I have never let our savings account get below that. Now fortunately my financial situation is a lot better, through following the advice of Joseph I developed an attitude of being committed to really hard work because I wanted to save up. Because of that hard work, I was recognized as a key employee at my job and was promoted into management. By that point, my personality and character had changed. Working hard to save up wasn’t something I had to deliberately try to do, working hard was something I naturally did. I was quickly promoted again to where now I make significantly more than the 22 year old bum who was working landscaping.

Maybe you are like how I was just a few years ago. Living in what you thought was prosperity, but not saving for hard times like Joseph was for the people of Egypt. Maybe in the last few weeks as a result of the corona virus that you are like the 6.1 million other people who lost their jobs and now you are entering a period of financial famine. I am praying for you and not with a judging heart because I know just a few years ago, if this would have happened to me, I don’t know how I could have survived. I pray that you get through this; but I also pray that you would learn from this. Someday on the other side, I pray that you would learn to store up for periods of famine while you are in periods of prosperity even if it doesn’t feel like a period of prosperity at the time.

Proverbs 6:6-8 says “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in the harvest."

I pray that you would learn to be like the ant. No doubt, a famine will enter your life again. I pray that you would prepare for it.

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