A leader is a master of frugality

Serpents are masters of frugality – this means they are not wasteful. They do not waste anything – when they eat an animal they eat the flesh, the horns, the bones! Snakes digest everything! Nothing goes to waste. Have you ever wondered what happens when a snake swallows an antelope? Where do the horns, flesh, hoofs, hair and teeth go?

He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.

Proverbs 18:9

Snakes waste nothing and that is why they are the most successful predators on this earth. Poor countries are usually run by great wasters. Rich countries are usually run by frugal leaders who leave nothing to waste. “There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up” (Proverbs 21:20). This is why rich people stop having pity on poor people because many poor people are great wasters.

Seven Discoveries in A Poor country

1.I discovered a poor country that was suffering from lack of water. Most areas in the capital city did not have running water. Amazingly, the capital city of that country had huge lakes on the outskirts of the city which were used to pump fresh water into the city. Can you believe that sixty percent of the water pumped went to waste through burst pipes and unchecked leakage?

2.I discovered a poor country which had embassies all over the world. This poor country could not build its own roads and even toilets. Yet, it maintained embassies that cost thousands and thousands of dollars to run every month. Some of the embassies of this poor country have a staff of ten to twenty-five well educated people who have almost nothing to do in those foreign countries. Instead of building an embassy, they rent expensive buildings in the capital city for decades. Can you imagine the cost of a highly indebted country running fully staffed embassies in The Hague, Tokyo, New York, Geneva, Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Madrid, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Ottawa and so on. Fantastic! Poor people are usually great wasters.

3.I discovered a poor country that was suffering from lack of food, lack of employment and a lack of everything. This poor country had to import millions of dollars of rice, meat and sugar. I decided to take a drive through that country. Did I see well-cultivated farms? No. I saw miles and miles of uncultivated bushes. You would have thought that every square inch of that poor nation would be used for farming so that they would not need to import food.

4.I discovered a poor country with high unemployment rates. Yet, this country side-lined half of the population because they did not vote for them. All the brains and good leaders who could help the nation were set aside, unused and wasted. Instead of the young people being mobilized to build roads and railways, citizens of other countries were brought in to develop the nation. I also saw how a few rich men and businessmen were hounded out of the country and prevented from doing their businesses because they belonged to the wrong political party.

5.I discovered a poor country that was suffering from chronic power outages. This country could not generate enough electricity to supply its needs. The lights would go on and off at random. Yet, thousands of lights and air conditioners were left on endlessly, day and night in most of the government offices. So much of the electricity in this poor country was wasted. Another sad feature was that this country had a lot of rivers that could be dammed. Yet, all the rivers were left to run freely into the sea, wasting a valuable source of hydro-electric power. This nation even developed a nickname for its on-and-off power supply.

6.I discovered a poor country that was blessed with miles and miles of a beautiful ocean shoreline. These beaches could have attracted thousands of tourists every year. Also, the miles and miles of salty sea water could have been used to generate tons of salt. Sadly, very little salt is generated by this country.

7.I discovered a poor country that had so much oil that it was oozing out of the ground in many places. Amazingly, the oil in this country was not used to generate income for this poor country. Once again, outsiders became rich through the oil of that nation and it became a wasted resource of that poor nation.

Indeed, experienced rich people do not feel sorry for poor people because many poor people simply waste what God has given them. These poor countries are not operating by the wisdom of the serpent. The serpent does not waste anything. It digests the head, the eyes, the brains, the hoofs, the horns, the flesh, the intestines and the tongue of the antelope it swallows. May you not be a leader who wastes many things! May you be a master of frugality!