The more easily you get to wealth, the less good it will do you. Proverbs 20.21 (GNB)

San Francisco and the bay area are a place where many people try to find quick riches. That is not a new thing. Long time ago we had the Gold rush, were people from all over left everything behind to come because they were hoping for an instant gratification and riches. That rush for instant riches stayed in the bay area to this day. People tried it through the .com boom in the late 90s and today through the whole startup world. Yes there were people that made it quickly, but many times with the riches came big problems. People didn’t know how to deal with all the money and spend it on things that were just bad for them. But so often we long for that instant gratification and that easy way of getting to it. But if we miss the process it is often bad for us. Another example is lottery winners. Many of them end up broke and worse off than they were before since they were not ready for the instant gratification.

Lets look at David and his life. David was young when he was promised to be king. But then it took many years of being under the current King, persecuted by the King and living in the land of the enemy. He definitely didn’t have an instant gratification. But in all those years he learned perseverance, grace and many other things that he needed to be a good King. So when he became King he was ready and he was ready to lead well. You see a bad example of that in the story of the prodigal son. He asked his father for his inheritance and he got his instant gratification. But he was not prepared on how to spend the money or how to deal with it, so in a short amount of time he spend it all and all his riches were gone. 2 very different examples but they show the point well.  So it is very important to walk out the process whatever we do in life. God wants to teach us something along the way so we are ready when we hit the next level.

Why do we share all this with you? Because it is a very important for loving our neighbor and build deep friendships. When we invest in relationships with our neighbor we don’t get an instant gratification. It takes a long time to get connected and to go deeper with each other. But those long-term friendships are the ones that last and are deep. If you have a friendship with someone for many many years a little disagreement won’t break it.

We want to encourage you in this Christmas season to build lasting and long-term relationships like the one the father wants to have with us. Ones that don’t have instant gratification, but have long-term depth. You will see how much it will bless your life!!!

Hey our friend

We hope you had an amazing week! Christmas is approaching fast!! Don’t forget to involve your neighbors into this time!! We had so many Christmas related things going on in the last week and were so blessed through them. We had a neighborhood Christmas party, a ywam fundraiser Christmas party and all our normal weekly things. We also had a baking time to bake some wonderful Christmas treat for our beloved neighbors, and give them a Christmas card. Many have been blessed through it including us. Its so simple but makes such a huge difference and shows that you love people. You can do that too!!!

So don’t forget its not about instant gratification, but its about the process in life and relationships!

Have a blessed week!!

God bless you

Markus and Jen