Richer Than Warren Buffett

 

For what is a man profited,

if he shall gain the whole world,

and lose his own soul?

or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

-- Matthew 16:26

 

 

Maddy's soccer team battled the muscle-bound, steroid-crazed, cigar-chomping girls from Gretna, Neb., to a 2-2 tie in the weekend tournament. To celebrate, we went to Dairy Queen this morning for an early lunch.

 

 

Maddy the mighty mite . . . makes a lot of funny faces when she plays soccer.

 

 

The manager was at the cash register, acting rather flustered. "There'll be an extra wait of about six minutes," he said, eyes darting toward the tables. "We just had a big order - lots of chicken fingers."

 

We saw a group of about a dozen people, from little kids to a gray-haired geezer, pulling together three round tables. We sat in the booth right next to them.

 

            After a few seconds, my beloved elbowed me with an excited grin and hissed:

 

            "That's Warren Buffett!"

 

            The richest man in the world, or thereabouts!

 

The owner of the entire Dairy Queen chain! No wonder the manager was on red alert.

 

It was Warren Buffett, genius investor and Omaha's favorite son, who recently hosted something like 35,000 people at his annual meeting here, with countless more who hang on his every word and wish they could have come.

 

 

Naturally! Here I am in my soccer mom sweatshirt, with no makeup and my hair blown into a fright wig. But look again: the richest man in the world was in even grungier sweatpants, and HIS hair was blown into a fright wig, too.

 

            It's one of the fun things about living in Omaha: you occasionally bump into Warren Buffett, and enjoy the fact that he and his family are totally "Omaha-y." I mean, you'd expect a limo and chauffeur, and a security SWAT team. But nooooo. They looked, and sounded, like regular folks, laughing and talking and enjoying their Dairy Queen treats.

 

            Now, everybody who lives in Omaha knows a lot about that family. They have done a ton of great things for education and for disadvantaged children. They have brought honor to Omaha's name. Mr. Buffett is widely known as a person of the utmost honesty, integrity, intelligence and insight. He can think better, write better, and joke better than anyone on the planet.

 

            But it's also well-known that Mr. Buffett is not a Christian and doesn't think the God of the Bible is real or true. He defines himself as "agnostic." According to what I've read, he doesn't revere the Bible as ultimate truth. His left-of-center political views, combined with that lack of spiritual conviction, have caused him to give lots of money to pro-abortion organizations worldwide. Apparently, Buffett's solution to poverty is eugenics - playing God through politics and population control - in defiance of God's clear rules about the sanctity of life, for rich and poor and everybody in between.

 

Now here he was, nearing the end of his life, right in front of my face. There had to be a reason.

 

 I start off every day by asking God to show me what I need to see in order to serve Him better. This was today's lesson:

 

Here's the richest man in the world. But he doesn't believe there's a world after this. He doesn't appear to believe in heaven or hell. He apparently thinks of Jesus Christ in the same symbolic, abstract terms as the numbers he reviews on balance sheets.

 

I pondered this silently, over my cheeseburger. And then it hit me:

 

He doesn't know Jesus.

 

He has never heard that "still, small voice" that speaks to your heart.

 

He may have redeemed a lot of bonds and securities in his life . . . but he doesn't know what it is like to have been redeemed by the blood of Christ on the Cross.

 

How ironic: there I was, in my old sweatshirt and windblown hair, and my heart was filling with sadness and compassion for this incredibly wealthy, famous and distinguished man.

 

But the truth is, a person who hasn't submitted to Jesus is as poor and needy as anybody on Earth.

 

Suddenly, I realized:

 

I AM RICHER THAN WARREN BUFFETT!!!!!

 

And I have something he doesn't have, that money can't buy.

 

Now, that's rich. But it's the truth.

 

As we finished, I walked by the multi-billionaire, and my heart radiated this prayer toward him:

 

Open the door to Jesus, Mr. Buffett, for He has riches you can't even dream of. He can give you a return on the investment of your faith that is beyond your wildest dreams. He loves you, and He's calling to you.

 

Will you join me in that prayer?

 

Is there a better thing to do to honor this great American, who is such an icon and a role model, than to help him realize that it is time to make the most important investment of his life?

 

Let's pray for Warren Buffett. It's time for the owner of Dairy Queen to meet the King of Kings. It's time for the richest man on Earth to meet the richest Man in the universe. We pray for the Wizard of Wall Street to get to know and love the only One Who really understands the balance sheet of each of our lives, and paid the ultimate price for each of us, including the Oracle of Omaha.

 

Mr. Buffett, meet Jesus.

 

You deserve the profit-sharing plan He offers to those who will submit to His love.  †