In it for the long haul

I went to a financial seminar the other day where they talked about investing in the stock market.  The market goes up and down on a daily basis and over the years has seen losses and gains on an annual basis.  The speaker noted that the key to successful investment in the stock market is to invest gradually and leave it in over time.  Putting money in and pulling it out as the market fluctuates is bad business.  Let me illustrate.

Taking the years from 1978 to the present (a 35 year period), you can look at any one year period and the worst year the market did had a loss of 37%.  So if you put your money in for that year only and took it out, you would have lost 37 cents on the dollar.  No one wants that.

Had you picked the best year the stock market did in that 35 year period and invested your money, you would have made 37.58%.  Great earnings, you just had to guess the right year.  Good luck calling that shot.

Now let's say you decided to leave your money in for five years.  How would you fair?  The best five year period had a gain of 28.56%.  Not bad.  The worst loss in any given five year period was only 2.3%.  Now you begin to see how waiting out the ups and downs begins to pay off.  Minimal chance of loss with good potential gains.

Now extend the hold to 10 years.  For any 10 year period of time between 1978 and 2013, the best returns were 19.21%.  Not as great as the 5 year gains, but the possible losses drop to only 1.38%.  The odds are even greater in your favor for worthwhile returns with low chance of loss.

Here is where the real money goes on Wall Street.  Let's say you invest your money purchasing stocks and you leave it in for 20 years.  A long time to not touch your money, but if we are looking at future retirement, this is the way to go.  For any 20 period of time during that 35 year period, the best returns were 17.88%.  In investment terms, that is a great return.  Savings accounts are only giving about 1% currently.

Now for the kicker.  The worst 20 period of time between 1978 and 2013 had a net gain of 7.81%.  That's right.  No 20 period, during that time, lost money and the worst 20 years gained almost 8%.  So it pays to stay in it for the long haul.

Why did I share that information?  Well, we all can use to learn a little about finances from time to time, but the real reason is the spiritual implication.

Our relationship with God needs to be viewed like the stock market.  If we look at any one year of our lives, we can see ups and downs, struggles and triumphs.  If you were to gauge your walk with God on any given year, one may conclude that God is nowhere to be found or doesn't care.  We all go through dark places, and God is always with us, but many times we don't feel it.  They we have years that God feels very present and active in our lives and we think He is the bomb.  But when you stretch out your relationship with him over five, 10 or 20 years, a pattern begins to emerge.  The graph slowly rises with little dips along the way and we see His faithfulness is ever increasing.  We see Him for who He truly is; the God of the long haul.

Our problem is that we are short sighted and can't see the big picture.  We only see the day to day; we can't see the forest through the trees.  But God sees our lives from beginning to end and He knows that the momentary light afflictions that we experience are fractional compared the wonderful riches of His great love, poured out over time.

I will admit there were years where I was ready to give up on God and even more so, on myself, but if I look over the past 20 years, God has proven himself faithful and having stuck it out with him, I have grown so much I can hardly believe it.

So do yourself a favor.  Invest some money for your long term needs, but even more importantly, invest your life in God for the long haul.  He is faithful to complete what he started and the end result will leave you speechless.