Did you ever have to sock money into an old vehicle?
We’ve been there many times. Recently we had to put a good sum of money into an older vehicle and to be honest, it was not fun! Our 15-year-old minivan needed some major repairs and we were undecided whether not to put that kind of money into it. How many more miles does it really have? Would it be worth it to spend that much?
Do you know what sounded less painful?
Investing a little more money into a different car that was a little bit newer. Let’s get one from this decade maybe? But we couldn’t be blind to the fact that even a newer vehicle will have issues and likely need repairs too. Like we tell our kids, cars are always a money-losing game, the goal is to lose that money as slowly as possible.
So we talked to our super trusty mechanic and really prayed about it. In the end it was clear that this vehicle was worth investing in.
The very act of investing in that old vehicle gave it more worth.
At first we were tempted to think, ugh, we just put how much money into this piece of junk? But then we realized if it were a piece of junk we wouldn’t throw money into it. We had bought this ’04 Toyota Sienna when we were just starting a family and had planned for it to last us a long time. We knew with the right kind of care it would. (And now that same baby we buckled into the car seat on that first ride is now the one learning to drive on it!) All 200,000 of those miles were ours. After that many miles and years, it made complete sense to keep investing in it and squeeze a couple more years out of it!
It’s all how you think of it: we’ve stopped calling it a piece of junk. We chose to look at it as a gift.
Suddenly thinking of it that way brought us joy. Thankfulness. And even though it isn’t new and shiny and it has a tape deck and maybe the A/C doesn’t work anymore (come summer time I may sing a different tune??) it’s still really valuable. It was a great investment! How awesome to have a reliable older vehicle that will serve our family well, yet if something happens to it (cough cough teenage drivers), it’s okay.
So bringing it back to relationships. Your marriage.
Your marriage also needs constant investment in order to keep running. Maybe right now your marriage is more like an old car and it feels like there are more repairs than you can keep up with. That keeping your marriage running well is costing too much.
The cost often is high. All great relationships are high maintenance! But when you invest in your marriage, you are saying: this is what I want to grow. This is what is valuable to me. You can speak life into your marriage by investing into it regularly!
The more you take care of things, the longer they will last.
THE DO’S OF INVESTING:
Focus on what’s amazing.
When you invest in your spouse and your marriage, focus on the positive. The things that he has most going for him. The wisest investors see potential that no one else can see. Keep an attitude of gratitude. Thank God daily for your marriage. You’re not going to want to invest in something you are not thankful for.
Commit to a long term investment.
The best investments you can make are rarely get-rich-quick-schemes. Instead true investing is putting in those small amounts, again and again, over a long period time. That’s when investing is most profitable. When you’re in it for the long haul.
The payoff will come.
When Joe and I were first married, we looked at the successful marriages around us and tried to learn their secrets. We saw the small, daily choices they made over long periods of time to get them where they were.
From the beginning, Joe and I were careful about how to invest our time and resources and those choices have followed us to today. And now that we are still happily married over twenty years later, we can say without hesitation we don’t regret that investment we made in each other. Every day. Over and over. Even though the initial investment was high, the payoff of that long term investment has been huge!
It’s never too late to start investing in your marriage or to ramp up your investments. The more you invest in your marriage, the more valuable it becomes. And the longer it will last!!
2 Corinthians 9:6; “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
Leave a Reply