If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free

I’m sitting here stalling when I should be mowing the yard or installing a new safety belt on the mower.

My wife and I had an interesting conversation today. I had noticed a story about Sting, the elderly rock musician who used to be so popular. He was bragging about not leaving his children anything, as though it made him a genius and a great parent.

We both thought he was an idiot.

He’s not alone. Gordon Ramsay is in the same camp. Tony Curtis disinherited all his kids. Bill Gates doesn’t trust his children to handle his fortune. Neither does Warren Buffett.

There are certain eternal truths God expects us to know, and one is that families are supposed to be built up by inheritance. In the Bible, having no inheritance was a great curse, and stealing an inheritance was one of the most wicked things a person could do. Unfortunately, few people know the Holy Spirit, so most don’t know how things work. They come up with their own stupid ideas, and the results are pretty bad.

The excuse these people usually give is that they don’t want to ruin their kids by handing them things they haven’t earned. Mind you, often, these are often people who didn’t raise their kids well, so they care enough to deprive them of money but not enough to teach them to thrive as adults without inheritance.

Here is what I think: one of the sickest, most evil things you can do is to compete with your own children, and many people are guilty of it. I believe most of these people are terrified their kids will become wealthier than they ever were, and then they won’t be the biggest fish in their little ponds.

I want my son to be taller, stronger, smarter, richer, more talented, more prolific, better-looking, and more virtuous than I am. I hope people are amazed at the difference between him and me. What kind of imbecile wants to be the point where his line peaked for all eternity?

It’s a testimony to people’s low expectations of their own parenting that they think giving kids things will ruin them. They think they can’t figure out how to help them without spoiling them, and they think the kids are such losers, they will be spoiled by whatever they get.

Here’s something no one seems to talk about: there are millions of rich people whose parents made them rich, who are better and richer than their parents. They’re common, just like kids who throw their inheritances away. There is nothing stopping a rich parent who helps his kids from teaching them to be good, responsible, prosperous people.

The wacky thing is that people who don’t trust their kids with wealth give it to strangers they don’t even know. It goes to the government. That’s like giving David Crosby the keys to a distillery. It goes to charities and causes that see to it that most of the money goes to their own executives.

One of the most insulting uses of an estate is to give it to animal-related causes. People are more valuable than animals, as Yeshua said. I would gas every unwanted pet on the planet before I would give them my children’s inheritance.

Unless my son is a sociopath, I will surely trust him to do better things with money than strangers, and if I have to choose between helping him tremendously and helping random people to be chosen later, in tiny increments that will soon be forgotten, clearly, I will choose to help him.

It makes no sense for every generation to start with nothing. That’s what rats and lizards do. One generation has all the problems the previous generation had. No advantages. Aren’t we supposed to be smarter than rats?

Trump has created new ways for the young to accumulate wealth, and we plan to take advantage. I want my son and whatever siblings he has to have real net worths when they become adults. I also want them to know some things about investing and taxes. Much more than I know. I don’t want them to look after their families by sweating and serving others. If there is a way, I would like to help them create businesses, preferably with few or no employees to make them miserable.

If you get a job at an established business these days, you can almost count on constant coercion. “Celebrate our LGBT-friendly workplace.” “Call male customers ‘miss.'” “Take that Trump sticker off your car.” “Remove that cross.” I don’t want my kids to face that. I want them to own the means of production, as dear old Karl Marx put it.

I wonder how old Sting would feel, dead 20 years, seeing his blue-collar cop son live in poverty due to a job-related disability. Would he want to come back and set him up with wealth? Maybe not. Maybe he thinks poverty builds character.

His son really is a cop. The others are low-level journeyman actors and a musician who opens for his dad’s band. They are not likely to do as well as he has, so here’s hoping nothing bad happens to them that would leave them in need of money.

If giving kids things ruins them, stingy rich people need to explain the Waltons or the Trumps. Bad parents are what ruin kids.

I went to school with the children of rich people. Most of the kids are well off. Doctors and so on.

God operates through inheritance. He loves it. In the Bible, every single Jew outside the tribe of Levi was supposed to be an heir. God divided their nation into areas, and each tribe got a piece. Every family received land. It was of such importance to God, selling land permanently was not allowed. It could be alienated for limited periods, and then it reverted to the owners.

The Levites were included through tithes and offerings. The others were obligated to support them. Nobody was left out.

The language of inheritance is all over the Bible. We even see it in passages regarding the people who will return to rule Earth after the tribulation. The word says they will inherit the earth.

Salvation is inherited, not earned. The word clearly says Yeshua is a decedent, and we are heirs. There is no way we could pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make it to heaven.

It astonishes me that there are people who want to set their kids back to zero. They could save them so much suffering, and they could empower them to do great things.

On the other hand, I am completely on board with disinheriting people who can’t be helped. There are people who will always destroy whatever they are given, and some, like my own sister, use what they receive to torment others incessantly. My experience tells me you should give your successful kids the bulk of what you have. The others will just destroy it and then go to the others so they can destroy the rest.

My dad used to joke about “my” inheritance. He would buy something and tell me it was coming out of my inheritance. The truth, though, is that I didn’t have an inheritance. I just had hopes. You don’t own what your parents or grandparents have while they’re alive. You should receive a share by default, but you’re not entitled, and if you prove you will misuse what you get, it should go to someone else.

The important thing for an heir is to be humble. An inheritance should make that easy, since it’s unearned. Strangely, heirs are often arrogant and belittling. I can understand why someone who thinks he is self-made would be proud, but why would you be proud of a gift you could never have created?

I did not earn most of what I have. Ancestors helped, and God directed things to me. Being proud of that would be delusional. Every day, I ask God to help me receive with fear, love, supernatural humility, awe, and gratitude. I don’t want to be ugly to him.

God loves humility, and he also loves inheritance. He expects these things to go together. He doesn’t want heirs to mistreat others or show off. Showing off wealth is abomination. We are all charity cases before God; guilty criminals who were taken in and adopted in spite of our rotten character and many sins. Using God’s charity to puff yourself up like a gilded toad shows a complete lack of self-awareness.

We are going to help him, and we are also going to teach him charity. I firmly believe giving to the needy brings financial prosperity from God. If he has inherited wealth, the Holy Spirit, a sound general upbringing, and a practice of giving generously, he should never lack for anything. On the contrary, he should live in exceptional abundance, and he should be able to do wonderful things for others.

If I raise my son wrong, cutting him off won’t help him, and if I raise him correctly, to be inhabited by the Holy Spirit, all the money on Earth won’t hurt him. I’m going to help him if I can. I don’t have to be the big fish in our little pond. I want him to be the big fish, and I want his kids to be yet-bigger fish.