Rich Man

As I drove home after dropping off the truck Sunday morning, a new Lotus sports car passed me on the freeway. I had never even seen a picture of this model. It was very cool. A few minutes later I passed a dealership with a showroom full of dozens of Ferrari's and Maserati's, each worth as much as a house. I have often thought about going in there just to look but then thought I'd be frowned upon and maybe asked to leave. Next to that dealer is a boat lot with scores of vessels worth as much as mansions. Then a Cessna Citation private jet streaked over me in a graceful curve climbing out at something like 200 miles per hour. I thought back to the days when I piloted a small Cessna plane and how I'd love to be doing that again on such a perfect day for flying. I felt kinda poor riding along in my ten year old car from working on Sunday morning while everyone else was in church, in bed, or on a lake or golf course. And I felt bad about my destination; my 10x11 foot “home”.

But I then quickly thought about what I had heard on the radio that morning as I drove up the highway to pick up the truck. I happened to tune into a show about investing money hosted by a 71 year old financial expert. It was all about making money work for you. People called in and talked about tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars they had invested here and there and how should they tweak this or that about their portfolio. It was like listening to a broadcast from another planet as far as anything I have anything to do with. But he started out by reading the following facts that have circulated widely on the web in various forms with numbers close to those quoted here:

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If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this:

There would be:

57 Asians 21 Europeans
14 people from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female 48 would be male
70 would be non-white 30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
2 would be near birth
1 would be near death
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer
Most would know the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation.
25 would have food in the refrigerator, clothes on their back and a roof overhead.
8 would have money in the bank, in their wallet or change in a dish some where

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Then I thought, how many people have a convertible of any age? And how many people live in a place where it never snows and can have the top down on a beautiful day in February and the ability to look straight up to see that pretty jet fly over? How many people have a motorcycle sitting at home? Two motor vehicles owned by a single person; that's an absurdity to most of the population of the globe. (I rent a room from a guy who owns six, if you can believe it, and two homes.) I have never lacked for a dry place to sleep at night. I've never had to run around naked. No one has ever thrown me in jail. I've never been beaten or raped. I've never been hungry for very long. I have a mind, an education, and experience that allows me to make more in a day than most of the world makes in a month and more than much of the world makes in a year. I have a computer and several musical instruments and a bunch of electronic gadgets that would have astounded the world's best scientists and engineers a decade ago. I have friends who like me and family that loves me. I have two legs that can walk me around. And two hands that can work all day and then play a tune on guitar and two ears that can hear it. I have two eyes that can drink in a sunset and fill my mind with stories and ideas from books, one of which is an interactive personal guidebook for life provided by the creator of the universe. I am reasonably healthy. The sun has risen every morning of my life, I have plenty of air and lungs to breath it, and my heart is still beating.

Yes there are a lot of things in my environment I don't have access to. Every day I see houses, boats, planes, luxury resorts, lake front property, cars, clothes, and toys of many kinds that are out of reach. It seems there is so much I will never posses. But this is a lie. Just by virtue of the fact that I was blessed to be born an American citizen I have provision and opportunity available to only a tiny fraction of the members of the global village. I have so much to be thankful for. It's actually an embarrassment of riches. I am indeed a rich man by any measure. I hope I will be able to be a good steward of it and thus honor the God who gave it to me. And always, always grateful.

There is a hotel here that almost succeeds in making you feel like you're in Italy