Without grandparents close by, one family longed for that special bond. They soon found it in unexpected relationships that filled their lives with love and connection.

How Complaining Can Harm Your Marriage

In our comfortable age, we often avoid affliction at any cost. But I’ve learned that Christian suffering isn’t without hope and that God often uses our pain to bring about redemption. In sixth grade, I joined the 12 percent of children who had a parent addicted to drugs. Before I knew what was going on, a pastor had discovered my mother’s addiction to opioids and confronted her. For her son’s sake, he said, she needed to become sober. If she didn’t give up her addiction, he would force her to go to rehab. She tried to detox on her own but couldn’t. I watched as she writhed on our couch in pain, convinced she was dying as a result of her withdrawal. A good friend of the family, and our roommate at the time, called 911 and my grandparents. I was sent to live with my grandparents “temporarily,” and an ambulance came to pick up my mom. The next day, she was taken to a rehab center, where she committed to getting sober. Little did I know, this was the beginning of the rest of our lives. Inexplicable Suffering Over the following years, I stopped viewing my mom as my mother. How I felt toward her depended on the day, but it mostly ranged from anger to sorrow. Band concerts and academic milestones continued on, but she wasn’t there. I saw other kids with their “normal” moms and was jealous. My jealousy bred anger, and I made up my mind that I wouldn’t care enough about my own mom to let her hurt me by her absence. When she was fresh out of her first round of recovery, she lived about an hour and a half away on the Oregon coast, where I’d visit. Halfway through a hike we took together, she wanted to take pictures with me at one particularly gorgeous viewpoint. As she explained that she wanted to have memories with her son, I immediately thought, I’m not your son. My genuine frustration and teenage rebellion resulted in my outright refusal of her request. I cried and screamed at her that I was tired of pictures and wanted to go home, refusing to make clear my true feelings. This interaction characterized our relationship for the next five years. In 2020, the world shut down. My mom moved in with my grandparents and me, and we spent six months together, barely leaving the house except to go to work. After a brief relapse, my mom had been sober for a few years, but her health was beginning to decline. Bedridden, with an IV and feeding tube, she was in immense and constant pain. Yet, in the middle of her disease and the COVID-19 lockdowns, I witnessed something extraordinary. My mom was given the strongest faith I’ve seen. No matter when I saw her, she was continuously worshiping—reading Scripture, singing, and praying. Unable to work, she took to online ministry and developed a modest following. She used her story of suffering to encourage others and share the gospel. As she read God’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9—“My power is made perfect in weakness”—she stopped praying for healing and instead prayed for God to glorify himself in her weakness. Inexplicable Grace In those days, I often went to bed later than I should have because I’d go to her room and check on her. We’d talk for hours about everything from YouTubers to eschatology. I witnessed something extraordinary. My mom was given the strongest faith I’ve seen. God transformed her in her suffering and used this to peel away the bitterness in my heart. With each passing day, God’s love was poured into my heart through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), leading me to forgive my mom as Christ had forgiven me—and as he’d forgiven her (Eph. 4:31–32). Because of our circumstances, my relationship with her grew deeper than it could have otherwise. I had no father in my life to teach me the ways of Christ, but she taught me much about him in those six months. My faith is indebted to her. After about six months, I went to college. Soon after, she headed to the ICU. A few weeks later, I flew home to be there when she was taken off life support. She was supposed to go quickly, but instead, she fought on for eight long hours. She barely had enough energy to look around. Unable to speak because of the ventilator, she opened her eyes at the sound of my voice. She began to scan the room, her head moving slowly and weakly. I quickly tried to get into her vision. Her eyes met mine, and her entire face and body softened immediately. I almost made out a smile. Where there had once been hatred toward her, only love remained. I choked out the words “I love you,” and as I did, her eyes closed. She would spend the rest of her life unconscious. That was our last late night together. In the middle of the night, she finally beheld Christ in the way she longed for. All Suffering Will End The truth is, we won’t always see good from our suffering on this side of eternity. Look to Hebrews 11 for a wonderful list of people who suffered greatly and didn’t see their reward in this life. Where there had once been hatred toward her, only love remained. Yet Christians will surely see their eventual glorification in heaven (Rom. 8). We’ll see the redemption of the universe and God’s glory triumph over every evil in this world. On that long-anticipated final day, we’ll stand as God wipes every tear from our eyes, just as Revelation 21 promises. Our hope is that our God is greater than any suffering, and he who wrought our redemption through Christ’s suffering can also bring redemption through our suffering.

In an iconic scene from the 1987 film Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, a ruthless businessman played by Michael Douglas, claims that greed is good. Most supporters of capitalism see Gekko as a caricature. Yet in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s 1957 procapitalist novel, greed is presented as the essence of capitalism. For Rand, greed is an objective moral good. Christians should universally affirm that greed is a moral evil. Still, working hard, investing wisely, and enjoying the increase from our efforts are depicted positively in Scripture. Is there a moral approach to seeking profit through business and investing? Robin John, CEO of asset management group Eventide, says there is. In The Good Investor: How Your Work Can Confront Injustice, Love Your Neighbor, and Bring Healing to the World, John argues that “investing can help us address our own genuine financial needs while at the same time . . . loving our neighbors and healing some of the world’s crushing pain” (17). In other words, running a business for profit isn’t inherently about greed. It should be about making the world a better place. Mixed Blessing of Markets John’s approach to investing is rooted in experience. He rose from childhood in a small village in India to become an investment company CEO demonstrates the potential of capitalism. So does the drastic reduction of the number of people living in abject poverty over the past century. Yet neither his personal success nor the positive aggregate data has blinded John to the limitations of impersonal markets. He also recognizes, as he shows through the story of Amal and Kamal, that contracts and corporate strategies can be used to ignore abuse. Contracts and corporate strategies can be used to ignore abuse. When John returned to India on business travel for a Fortune 500 company, he lived in “a house full of vacant rooms” that were air-conditioned; meanwhile, the two servants, Amal and Kamal, were “crammed into a furnace of a pantry without even rudimentary bedding” (25). When he raised concerns to his superiors, he was told nothing could be done. His company contracted for the house and the help. They felt they had no moral responsibility to treat the servants better. John resigned and found work he could do with a clear conscience. His experience taught him that capital “can create immense value and solve some of the world’s deepest needs. Or, when disconnected from its true purpose, it can extract value and cause extensive damage” (33). The answer isn’t to abandon the good of capitalism but to use it redemptively. The idea for his values-based investment strategy was born. Invest for Good According to Gallup, 62 percent of Americans are invested in the stock market. Some are invested through direct ownership of stock shares. But many more Americans own shares of mutual funds through company-sponsored 401(k)s, personal IRAs, or other retirement plans. Even workers with pensions are usually indirectly invested in the stock market. Most of us look at target dates, historic returns, and fees when we’re choosing our mutual funds. But mutual funds buy shares of many companies, which makes knowing what we’re investing in difficult. Thus, Christians can wind up indirectly owning shares of companies that have unjust labor practices, produce pornography, or provide abortions. These investments raise obvious ethical questions for believers. Exclusive focus on returns and fees also undermines the purpose of investment. According to John, “The purpose of investing is to provide capital to businesses creating goods that are actually good for the world and services that actually serve the world’s needs” (66). That goal is often subverted by investments like mutual funds and exchange traded funds that seek diversification with return on investment as the primary goal. Like any other investment company, Eventide buys shares of companies that hold a “competitive edge and [anticipate] making stellar returns.” But they also create investment portfolios that “pursue this better world we’re all longing to see” (68–69). The book is a long-form argument for a values-based approach to investing that offers real-world examples of the difference Eventide is making. Rehumanize Investing Eventide’s values-based approach substantially differs from the investment advice the internet commonly serves up. It especially subverts the adoption of passive index investing. The first passive index fund was launched in 1976. Now, as much as a third of all stock may be held in funds that try to replicate common market indices, like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ. In the passive index strategy, the only metric that determines whether to buy a stock is whether it’s included in a given index. Fund portfolios are often rebalanced automatically by algorithms that execute the human-designed strategy. The answer isn’t to abandon the good of capitalism but to use it redemptively. The passive index approach significantly reduces the administrative costs of investment, because there’s no need to individually vet each company. However, lower costs come with trade-offs. According to John, “The collective voice of investors played a significant role in the ending of the inhumanity of South African apartheid” (129). Passive index funds make that sort of influence impossible. As John sees it, investment should be about “people banding together to address the needs of their neighbors,” not just a means to maximize returns (182). The challenge with an active, values-based investment approach is that it costs more to monitor companies to ensure their goals are directed toward the common good. The higher fees on many values-based investments will reduce investor returns over the long term. Yet it was Jesus who asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). As many increasingly defer to AI, a values-based investment strategy stands out by keeping humans in the mix. However, many individuals—especially those investing in workplace retirement plans—don’t have easy access to values-based funds. Not all of John’s suggestions are actionable by all potential readers. Additionally, we have to be careful about overestimating individual culpability for others’ sins. There are limits to human knowledge and control. For example, I don’t become culpable for a man’s abuse of his wife if I fill up at his gas station. If applied rigidly, the moral framework John lays out could make ordinary economic activity difficult, if not impossible. Nevertheless, John offers an important reminder to look beyond the annual return when considering where to invest. In the end, The Good Investor is an important reminder to Christians that our work is good, that markets can benefit the world, and that the way we invest matters to God.

The God who made heaven and earth created you. He sees you. Just like in Genesis 16:13, when Hagar realizes that God saw her and the injustice she was facing, God sees you. You’re never out of his sight.