Last month I was invited to speak at one of our SCBI Churches for an event geared toward younger married couples. I was asked to focus on what young couples needed to know about preparing for the future from a financial perspective. I gave them a biblical foundation to build on; God has provided all we possess, put God first in your heart, mind and wallet, and honor the Lord with all that you do financially. Then we moved on to the practicals – “spend less than you make,” “save for a rainy day” and then moved on to the how’s and why’s of budgeting.
It was good night until I realized, it wasn’t. As I was moving toward directing their attention to how to prepare for retirement, I asked one of those “just wondering” questions. “I’m just wondering, how many of you have a Will?”
In the entire room only one person raised their hand. When I followed up the question the hand-raiser said, the only reason he had a will is he had to have one to be eligible for adopting.
This is not good. People need to take seriously their need for a Will but they don’t. Maybe it is because we don’t like to talk about the reality of our coming deaths? Or maybe we just don’t know we should have one? Whatever the reason we need to address this issue – now.
When I became a Believer, I was 36 years old, a construction company executive and the first Christ follower on the Weeks Family Tree. Not long after my salvation we were preparing to fly to Florida to embark on a Cruise. That’s when it hit me. If we both die in a plane crash who is going to raise our kids?
When children are left orphaned, the State determines who assumes responsibility for them. My family, while good people and well to do, were not Believers. I could not bear the thought of my kids being raised outside of Christ so we took steps to ensure that would not happen. We met with our best friends who had children of similar ages and who were and still are Godly people. We asked them if they would be willing to raise our kids should something happen to us. They cried. We cried. They said, “yes.” We made a simple will with advice from another friend and the deed was done, so to speak.
The truth of the matter is our preparations should have gone beyond care for our children and embraced what would happen to all our worldly possessions. Dave Ramsey says something like, ‘You have to tell your money where to go.’ Never is that more applicable than when someone dies. If you haven’t told your money where to go the State will. You can depend on that.
I can’t help but think that we are doing a disservice to our church members if we are not assisting them to understand end of life considerations that impact those they will leave behind.
The Baptist Foundation would like to help. Perhaps your church would host a Sunday afternoon seminar to address those very issues. A little lunch, a little laughter mixed in with a little bit of serious. It could make a huge difference.
I have had the honor of representing the Foundation and preaching in churches all across our State. I would love to do so in your church also. Call my cell 812/592-3755 or reach out by email at bweeks@inbaptistfoundation.org to arrange for a seminar or visit.