By Eric Sutliff, December 29, 2023

If you had invested 10,000 dollars into an index fund that tracks with the S&P 500 in 1970, you would be pulling out around $2.2M at the end of 2023. Not a bad 10.5% return per year. It sounds easy once you look back upon it, but frankly, it took bitter resolve to keep your money in the market through the last 50 years. To do so, you would have had to have remained calm during a couple of oil scares in the ’80s and ’90s, the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, the great recession of ‘08-‘09, and the COVID plummet in 2020. Not only did it take a patient, robust foundation, but it also took trusting that the market would level-set in your lifetime.

You may be asking yourself, though, what would have happened if I had started investing in 1960 instead of saving up my earnings in the decade to attend Woodstock? Well, that 10,000 in 1960 would have grown to a whopping $4.7M. 1950? Even more, but you understand my point. That is the power of compounding interest. 

In investing and our Christian walk, we do not give enough credit to steady, solid perseverance. This is not only over months and years but decades. Weathering the peaks and valleys of investing and of life. The late minister, scholar, and author Eugene Peterson best called it “A long obedience in the same direction.” 

This long obedience in the same direction is revitalized every single day. Small actions become of the utmost importance. 

It starts with the first step – Initial movements are integral in casting your life trajectory in the right direction. 

Let’s think about it this way: if you are a baseball fan or have ever watched the movie “Good Will Hunting” you would be familiar with Carlton Fisk’s legendary home run that ricocheted off of the left field foul pole in the bottom of the 12th inning during game 6 of the 1975 World Series. This game-winning homerun has been the centerpiece of inspirational sports montages for decades and catapulted the Red Sox into game 7 of the 1975 World Series. 

But it was fractions of a second away from never happening. 

If Fisk’s bat had connected with the ball even .01 seconds earlier, it would have gone left of the foul pole and never been part of sports lore almost 40 years later. Your planned orientation is as important or more important than where you currently stand. This is hope. 

Understand where you are called to go, align your trajectory, and stay steadfast in patient endurance. As Moses encouraged Joshua and all of Israel before entering the land promised to them by their God in Deuteronomy, “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:7 – 8 ESV).

The Lord has gone before you. The Lord guides our orientation and gives us the foundation to follow Him throughout decades. You will be amazed by the exponential effects of grace over a lifetime.  

I will leave you with some words from C.S. Lewis as we consider the snowballing dynamics of interest in your life, “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make are of infinite importance”.

Today matters. Go in peace. 

Eric Sutliff is an assistant VP at Guy Carpenter in Atlanta, Georgia. He loves to run, bike, and explore the outdoors. He serves and worships alongside the body of believers at Passion City Church.