My friend, Mike, really loves Jesus. Like the rest of us, he also has problems. Thankfully, his drug and alcohol addictions that plagued him in the past no longer have their grip on him today. He’s been sober for almost 30 years.

We had just finished one of those Mercer Mall shopping trips I mentioned in yesterday’s devotional entry. My sister and I were ready to head out and load up the car with our new Trapper Keepers and Reebok pump shoes. But before leaving, my dad suggested we stop at the drugstore, and he generously purchased a few lottery scratchers for us.

The small town I grew up in Southwest Virginia did not have many places to shop, so when back-to-school time came each year, we would make the pilgrimage through the tunnels on I-77 over to Mercer Mall in Bluefield, WV.

My friend, Travis, takes his faith and his money very seriously. He knows that everything belongs to Jesus. He has been a faithful steward of what has been given to him.

In the early days of commercial airlines, the wealthy were the only people who could afford to fly. But then Herb Kelleher came along. He founded Southwest Airlines in 1967 and he knew that he could figure out a way to provide low-cost airfare to the masses, without lowering quality or standards.

My friend Jimmy grew up dirt poor in the small town of Tipton, Oklahoma. In Tipton in the 1950’s opportunities were hard to find. Food stamps and Medicaid did not exist yet, so when times got tough, Jimmy’s mom nearly begged people to provide food for them. The family chopped and pulled cotton just to keep their bellies full.

John Wesley had just finished decorating his dorm room while studying at Oxford. He spent all he had to set his room up exactly as he wanted it. He was ready to tackle his studies in a comfortable environment.

Joe came into my office one day for a first-time meeting. Right away, he made it clear that he was impressed with the investments he had picked while managing his own accounts. And still he wanted to get a second opinion. Really, he wanted to know two things: Was he missing anything? And was his investment success due to luck or skill?

Our friends, Jim and Stephanie, recently purchased one of the oldest and most grand houses in our neighborhood. The house sits high atop one of the only hills in an otherwise flat town. Many years ago, the house was the gem of the neighborhood, but for the last few decades it sat abandoned - well, except for the mice, squirrels, insects, and other pests who took up residence and destroyed the house from the inside out. Thankfully, the exterior brick remained, but the inside was rotten.

Do you know that you are part of God’s well-diversified portfolio? You have unique gifts - but have you defined them?