Opportunity Cost: a benefit you could have received that is given up by another course of action. (Basically, it's opportunities your choices cost you).
I've been learning a lot lately about the struggles and effects of poor financial choices. It's embarrassing to admit that I don't know how to spend money well and, as of late, it's been a huge stressor in my life. My earthly and heavenly fathers have been extremely gracious and patient with me, helping me learn how to make better choices. In a recent conversation with my dad I was complaining about paying for one fun thing or another and he said, "Well, that's just going to cost you somewhere else." In other words, "that's an opportunity cost."
This statement has followed me around ever since our conversation. Every purchase I make, each meal I eat out, any stop I make at the gas pump, my thought is, "This is costing me somewhere else." And that thought sprouted another collection of thoughts: each choice I make personally is like my bank account- it costs me somewhere else - be that mentally, physically, relationally, or more importantly, spiritually.
The hardest thing about opportunity costs is more often than not, they don't occur immediately. Financial choices I made last Fall and late this Spring are just now catching up to me and I'm having to unwind a year's worth of choices. It's the exact same way with our sin. Sin has the greatest opportunity cost. We may not face consequences in the same moment we make our sinful choices, but it does eventually catch up, whether we see it or not. Scripture illustrates this point:
“Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generations.”
It's scary to realize that even at (almost) 25 the choices I make today will affect my children and their children. What a huge motivator!
Now, clearly our God is a God of forgiveness. Scripture also says that when we seek His forgiveness our sins are no more. He literally forgets them. So what does that mean in regards to spiritual economics? Well, theres a flip side to this whole opportunity cost thing. It's effects are not all negative. In fact, positive and faith-filled choices we make can have a reversing effect. Romans 4:5 says that when we choose to believe God, our faith is credited to us as righteousness. Beth Moore puts it this way:
“All that time I thought God was counting my sins, and He was counting my faith as righteousness instead.”
This means every time we come to a crossroad of choices, we can either choose to withdraw from our spiritual piggy banks, or we can make a deposit through faith. While I am still working this out with my real life piggy bank, my prayer is for my heart and yours to store up our treasures in heaven through depositing our faith in God.