The New Life, Inc.

What do you think of when you think of wealth? It seems that in the United States it means money; which in turn means I am a success if I have a lot of it.
The truth is we can be wealthy and not have very much money. I had a wonderful moment the other day; a thought came to me from the Holy Spirit,”You are wealthy!”
I thought on this for awhile and finally said to myself, “Yes I am a very wealthy man!”
I never realized before just how wealthy I was. Pauline and I have a little savings as well as some stock and bonds from the sale of our house several years ago. Most people would not consider us wealthy.
In Florida we live in a trailer park in a mobile home; in Vermont we also live in a trailer park in a mobile home. I suppose some folks would consider us trailer trash. You know what? We love it; we are wealthy!
I am eighty three; for several days I have been working outside digging up the lawn to prepare for a cement pad to park my car on. It is hot sweaty work. One of my neighbors came by yesterday and stopped to talk with me. He said, “Why don’t you hire someone to do that digging?” My response was, “I want to do it. I need the exercise at my age.” This is part of my wealth; I enjoy doing it.
I have a wonderful wife and she is a great cook. Much of our family is also living nearby; this is all part of the wealth that is mine. I have many friends all over the country and they are very dear to us. I am a very wealthy man!
My greatest wealth is a very close walk with my Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Add to that the peace, love, and joy the Lord has put in my heart and I can give it all away and never run out of it. What more do I need? I am a wealthy man!

We all have some little things that happen to us; even now you think of it and it makes you laugh. That happened to me today. About forty years ago Pauline and I did a lot of ice fishing. You have to be pretty dedicated or a little crazy to be a fisherman in the winter time. I guess we were probably a little bit of both.

Up north on the Canadian border in Vermont in Jan. and Feb. it can be mighty cold anywhere from freezing down to well below zero, like 20 below. Some of these dedicated fishermen have it pretty easy; they have a small shack they put on the ice with all the comforts of home with a hole in the middle of the floor to fish through and a heater plus a few things to drink to keep you warm and feeling good. We didn’t have these delights; we just had a box with our tipups and the hand drill to make the hole in the ice. Oh! just so you will know we had to drill through from fifteen inches to three or four feet of ice.

Now because I have a creative mind, I sat on my box thinking I could make one of these little shacks out of plastic sheeting with a light framework that would fold up into a small package we could easily carry and set up and thereby be warmer and more comfortable fishing.

I did it! I made one in my basement room and it worked perfect! A few says later off we went fishing with our portable shack. The day we went the ice was glare and slippery, a perfect day for ice skating, oh yes, it was windy. Well you know the shack did not go up as well as it did in the basement. The wind really picked up headed north right up the lake toward Canada.