Hebrews 12:11

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Yesterday morning, I over did it. From time to time, I press my luck with the weight machines or distance on the trail. Sometimes I pay the price with sore muscles and joints for a day or two. I once heard a preacher say that he wished he could become physically fit by hiring a high school student at minimum wage to perform his exercises. This morning, I think that is an excellent idea.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. Even if you hire a personal trainer or a financial advisor, you are the only one who can find financial freedom for yourself. It is primarily your effort and decisions that will ultimately create the outcome of your life. Dave Ramsey is fond of comparing our financial journey to a small boy riding a one speed bicycle up a long hill. Sometimes, he has to ride at an angle, back and forth across the street, because the hill is too steep for a direct frontal assault. Sometimes, he just has to get off the bike and walk it up the hill. If he persists, the time will come when he can coast down the hill, enjoying the fruits of his labor. This is a pretty good analogy, but the reality is both better and worse than the story. With a little luck, your one speed bicycle will someday become a motorcycle that generates its own fuel. If you try to ride down the hill, before starting up the hill, student loans, car notes, and credit cards will condemn you to years of debt slavery before you can break even.

Not everyone is born with the body of a Michael Jordan, but nobody, whatever their talent level outworked Michael Jordan, a man who said, “If you do the work, you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”

I remember listening to the story of a retired man who once worked in the same textile mill where I started my career. He never earned that much more than minimum wage, but he provided for his family, supported himself and his wife in retirement, and left a small legacy to his children. My own grandfather, a dustbowl farmer that just barely held on to his land during the depression, managed to leave a farm without a mortgage to each of his four children before his death. You don’t need the brain of a Warren Buffet to find financial freedom.

Money is funny stuff. Even if you are storing your money in Mason Jars and burying them in the Wooly Swamp, it is increasing or decreasing in value. Inflation, deflation, dividends, and interest are constantly changing the value of your stash. Albert Einstein stated that compound interest was the strongest force in the universe. While I expect this oft quoted statement was delivered with tongue firmly in cheek, nuclear fission and financial freedom both require a critical mass, enough money or fissionable material to produce a self-sustaining reaction.

“A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, the nuclear fission cross-section), its density, its shape, its enrichment, its purity, its temperature, and its surroundings. The concept is important in nuclear weapon design.” Wiki

Like money, the nature of a nuclear reaction is defined by equations. Unfortunately, it is hard to quantify the effects of irrational human behavior on the price of objects of value until after the fact.

Even given our inability to predict the future of the economy,

Money In = Money Stored + Money Out

Mastering that equation is the work of a lifetime, but unlike physical exercise, the benefits of years of financial discipline won’t end with your death. The wise use of your money can not only provide blessings for yourself, your family, and others while you are alive, but those funds can continue to be a source of blessing for generations yet unborn.