Even in this most affluent nation on Earth, the average American will at some point experience “trouble” in making ends meet, many on a regular, even lifelong, basis. It’s estimated that 67%–78% of Americans live “paycheck-to-paycheck,” with little left over after covering their monthly expenses. My guess is that many receiving this letter have confronted, at some point in their lives, the pending threats associated with unpaid obligations: a credit card refused, discontinuation of services, eviction, repossession, even bankruptcy. It’s why they call it “trouble” in making ends meet.
A Personal Remembrance
I well remember my own father bringing a box of his bills to the kitchen table every Saturday morning. He would crank away on an old-fashioned, mechanical “adding machine,” running a total against the take-home amount on his tradesman’s paycheck. I and my siblings complacently occupied ourselves in the adjacent room with the inanity of Saturday morning cartoons as Dad would crank out one tape after another, at increasingly faster tempo, searching fruitlessly for that number that would match up with his cash on-hand. The ends rarely, if ever, met and the associated, long-running “troubles” with Dad making ends meet left me with hypersensitive fight or flight reflexes in relationship to money to this day. That God would eventually call me to raise money for Bethlehem College and Seminary and its Serious Joy Scholarship says something both of his sense of humor and of his reliance on broken vessels as the only human tools with which he has to work.
Some Etymology
“Making ends meet,” just where does this expression come from? The etymology is inconclusive. Some say it originated in the accounting profession as ciphers sought to put their debits and credits in order, but that seems too “No, duh.”
I prefer the more colorful explanations that it either derived from the tailoring profession where sewer or seamstress sought to “make ends meet” for the sake of using just enough material, and no more than necessary, or from sailors splicing rope ends together to save on the expenses of seafaring. These explanations seem less “troubling” to me; more a matter of making the most of what you have to be able to continue do the most of what you’re doing.
Having Joy in It
That’s the way it works here, where making ends meet is a joyful undertaking, done frugally, utterly dependent on God, but truthfully with no less tug and pull than either Dad, accountant, tailor, or sailor exerted in causing their respective ends to meet. Each year we begin with no clear line of sight to whence the full funding of our Serious Joy Scholarships will flow, save the marvelous grace of God. We set out in faith.
This year a band of generous contributors came together in January to form a Million Dollar+ Challenge that the rest us might be stirred all the more as God’s means of providing remarkably low tuition to the students of Bethlehem College and Seminary, and competitive compensation and benefits to the world-class faculty that teaches them.
Now, with only days remaining before all the bills are due, those ends don’t quite yet meet.
This is not to say we face any dire consequences. It is true that other notable theological seminaries and Christian colleges have recently made public financial woes necessitating their closures or relocations to more modest accomodations. For now, God continues to show much favor toward our frugal, debt-free, low-overhead, remarkably affordable model. Still the costs of recruiting students, retaining faculty, and conducting operations remain substantial and inflated, even with our “wartime lifestyle” approach.
But in this tiny margin where the ropes aren’t quite yet spliced, the material not quite yet touching end-to-end, and debits and credits not yet all lined up, comes a gigantic hand. It is the hand that placed the heavens as a canopy, set the stars in their courses, filled the oceans, and pinched the mountains into their peaks. In the tiny financial delta between Bethlehem College and Seminary’s revenue and expenses comes this loving, unmeasurably large hand to gently, but conspicuously tuck the ends together, as he has promised.
Steadfast love and faithfulness meet
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
Yes, the LORD will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
—Psalm 85: 10-12 ESV
The Ends Meeting
All of his work is easy for God, but reconciliation is something of his specialty. For in his mercy he looked down on the gap between his righteousness and our sins, and made a way to cause those ends to meet. He bled and died on a cross that our debts could be settled, offenses forgiven, ultimate accounts settled in-full. And we would now do anything for him. Our joy is so full that it overflows into his work of gathering a people to himself. We are like the Macedonians in 2 Corinthians 8: 2-5 who, “in a severe test of affliction [author emphasis: ‘making ends meet’], their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity…they gave…beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part.…” There is, for those in Christ, an ultimate ends meeting—in the sky. Maranatha. Please, give yourselves “first to the Lord,” as did those Macedonians and, if it be his will, ”to us.”
In the larger sense, all is said and done. We have kept the ministry of Bethlehem College and Seminary and The Serious Joy Scholarship before you for these last 12 months. Some have lavished generosity on the school in this season, others have persisted in month-after-month offerings—all have sacrificed. At this writing the job is an unfinished one. The ends do not yet meet, but we press on for the joy set before us, trusting in his promises, eager to see what God may be pleased to do, and fully expectant to see his glory displayed.
June 30 Deadline
From the bottom of our hearts, we express the deepest Godward gratitude for all that you have done, every prayer you have lifted, and what you may yet do to support The Serious Joy Scholarship for school year 2024-25, ending on June 30.
Please keep this ends meeting in your prayers. On July 1, we start over again, by his grace. To him be all glory and honor and praise.
Rick Segal
Vice President of Advancement &
Lecturer of History and Political Philosophy