ALL of a sudden

Reversal of Fortune is the name of a documentary my wife and I viewed back in 2006 that chronicled the life of a homeless man in Pasadena who stumbles upon $100,000 (U.S.). Eerily we watched as the personality of a man named Ted shifted from that of a fairly humble, content hustler to an ungrateful pleasure seeking fool. He epitomized the rags-to-riches and back to rags story that we occasionally hear about in which someone gets a lot of liquid wealth so quickly that they choke on it. The caveat in this story, however, was that Ted was offered help and refused it. It would have been quite cruel to film a guy knowing he’d squander his new found fortune but the documentarians saw fit to bring in advocates for homeless men like Ted to help him manage his funds and get off the streets permanently.But sudden wealth has an allure all its own, with emphasis on the sudden, and it either lurks when it arrives or offers a glimpse into one’s potential.

When something lurks, that means it looms or loiters nearby as a sign of impending doom. But sudden wealth, for instance, doesn’t have to lurk if you’re prepared for it – that is, if you have developed the character needed to appropriate such wealth. What got me thinking about this idea was something I read this morning about how we so-called Christians slander God. He tells us we can, with His Spirit, and we say, “No, I can’t.” It’s like a homeless man being given a sack full of loot only to blow it because he really doesn’t think he’s capable of more.

There’s not so much wrong with an unexpected sum of money, an impromptu promotion or an unusual availability of much needed resources. On the contrary, there is something wrong with us not believing that such gifts stand to move us on toward our potential. Grown-ups often go on and on about how, “Young people don’t know their own potential.” Maybe it’s time to be on the watch for the opportunity that fuels the potential of which the grown-ups spoke.