What are Your Assets?

Every tale of someone being lost or marooned without hope of rescue includes taking inventory of one’s assets. The principle remains the same for us, too, when we find ourselves alone, widowed, friendless, homeless, luckless, or ailing.

Some needs – water, warmth, shelter, food, medical treatment – need to be met immediately. Survival depends on it. Certain items can help manage those needs: a knife, coat, tarp, food, water, painkillers, or extra shoelaces. In the movie “The Princess Bride,” the only assets available for rescuing the princess are one sword, sharp wits, a wheelbarrow, a cloak to set on fire, and of course, Andre the Giant — not a bad arsenal, all told.

But liabilities often appear more quickly than assets. Just check the invoices arriving in the mail and you will see the usual pattern of more bills than money. We know the liabilities, but what are the assets?

You have people — family, friends, fellow believers, and neighbors. You have a place to live, although it might not be ideal. And you are alive. And where there is life, there is hope.

This is nothing new. Jesus knew his assets too. Thousands of people followed him out into the countryside, hanging on his words as if they were solid gold, until they found themselves far from town and hungry without any prospect of dinner.

Jesus noted the huge crowd, numbering some 5,000 people, and asked his disciple Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus, like a good trial lawyer, already knew the answer before he asked the question, long before Philip responded with an exasperated, “Eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” (Luke 6:7). Maybe Philip muttered to himself, “Why does Jesus always ask me the tough questions?” hoping for an easy out to his dilemma.

Note the difference in perspective. Jesus asked, “Where can we find bread?” This was not the “royal we” like when your wife says that WE need to clean the gutters when it really means YOU are going to clean the gutters, but that Jesus and the disciples shared this challenge together. Philip only saw how much it would cost, taking the project completely upon his shoulders.

Jesus asked for a location, a bakery, or any other possibility, while Philip only saw their meager bank account. Both had a sense of enormity — one that of opportunity, the other of impossibility.

Soon Andrew, another disciple, piped up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.” He saw a minimal asset but did not yet understand Jesus’ way of doing things, adding, “but how far will it go among so many?” (Luke 6:9).

What were the liabilities? Five thousand hungry people, no food, too far to get food, and not enough money to buy even a little bit if they could find some.

What were the assets? Five loaves, two fish, one boy with a generous heart, one disciple who loved people, and the Son of God.

So, what are your assets? I doubt you have barley loaves and dried fish in the pantry, and certainly not enough to feed 5,000 hungry diners, but I am sure there is something you can use. Perhaps you could do something special for a small group of people who are alone and forgotten during one of the family holidays this year.

Check your assets. You might have some frozen sides, canned vegetables, a few potatoes, and a loaf of bread. You cannot feed 5,000 or even 50, but you can make a memorable feast for a few.

The Lord knows and chooses to work with the weak, poor, insignificant, and marginalized to accomplish some of His greatest works. He chose small Israel to be His people. He chose insecure Gideon and called him a “great warrior,” using him to deliver Israel from their Midianite oppressors. He chose Moses, a murderer with a confidence problem, to lead Israel out of bondage in Egypt. The Lord used Jael, a “tent wife” armed with a tent peg, mallet, and warm milk to defeat Israel’s enemy. God chose David, the “runt” of Jesse’s family, to be king and to defeat the Philistine giant Goliath with a smooth stone and a sling.

God chose Bethlehem, a grubby, second-rate suburb of Jerusalem, to be the birthplace of the King of Kings in a cattle shed, no less. He took Andrew, a willing disciple who lived his entire life in the shadow of his more flamboyant older brother, to be the one to find the means to cater the most miraculous dinner ever recorded, feeding over 5,000 famished guests with 12 big baskets of leftovers!

What are your assets? Grace, forgiveness, redemption, holiness? Maybe the Lord can do something special with you, too, if you are willing to be useful. It may not appear to be much, but little is plenty when the Lord uses it.