I Choose Not to Participate

Barbara Walters interviewed Rush Limbaugh on her prime time special last Thursday night, Barbara Walters Presents: The Ten Most Fascinating People of 2008.

It started like this:

BW: Rush, you recently re-signed your contract for something like $38,000,000 a year with a $100,000,000 bonus. Are you worth it?

RL: Of course.

BW: We're in an economic slowdown. And you're making more money. You're one of these people that, you know, that we talk about who gets richer and richer while everybody else gets poorer and poorer, right?

RL: Now, now, now. Don't lump this. My wealth, if you want to describe it that way, is a result of work, the audience is large, they're loyal. What recession?

BW: I say, for you, there's no recession.

RL: Well, I just choose not to participate.

That line is so good, my husband re-titled his sermon with it! It may be one of my new catch phrases. I mean, really, who says we have to participate in everything people throw at us?

A few weeks ago, in another sermon, my husband used the illustration that we are the paint, we are the painting, and we are the painter. The problem is that we keep letting other people paint on our canvas!

Oh, all the laws of our society's economics may be true and may be in play. And they will continue to be so. UNTIL a higher law comes into play. Well, I choose to participate in the HIGHER law -- the Biblical laws of financial stewardship. No matter what comes my way, I choose God's way.

Yes, there may be a recession. It may be coming. It may have been here for awhile. But...

I'm choosing not to participate.

And I'm choosing what goes on my canvas and by whom.