Charging Ahead to Our Financial Ruin
Years ago I heard a missionary tell about a popular trap used to capture monkeys in the jungles of Africa. The trap simply consisted of a heavy, long necked bottle containing a fistful of nuts. These bottles would be dropped on the jungle floor over night. The next morning the captors would return to find a trapped monkey beside each bottle. Although the monkeys could easily slip their open hands into the bottles, they could not get their hands out while holding a fistful of nuts. Thanks to the bottles being too heavy to carry off and the silly apes being unwilling to let go of the nuts, the monkeys ended up trapped and shipped off to zoos around the world.
According to the United States Commerce Department, the average American spent more money last year than he/she made. The only other time besides last year that the savings rate in America was negative for an entire year was 1932 and 1933, a couple of years when our country was attempting to cope with the dire consequences of the Great Depression. Unlike 1932 and 1933, last year’s negative savings rate had nothing to do with economic depression; instead, it had everything to do with impetuous desires.
Americans no longer have to save for things they can’t afford or live within their financial means. Thanks to credit cards, Americans can now impetuously whip out their plastic and purchase on the spur of the moment whatever their hearts desire. Unfortunately, by doing so they unknowingly indenture themselves to fat cat bankers who smoke Cuban cigars and set around with their alligator shoes propped up on their mahogany desks. It’s just like the Bible says: “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).
Like the monkey trap, this plastic trap only works on foolish primates; that is, it only works on those foolish enough to do themselves in over their refusal to do without something they desire. Like silly apes that end up in zoo cages due to their refusal to deny themselves a few nuts, many silly Americans end up financially ruined because of their refusal to deny themselves their every desire. Is your hand in the bottle? If so, you can free yourself by letting go of that nutty plastic.
Don Walton
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