Investing to Be the Light in the World

This year, I have been reflecting on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, more specifically verses 14 through 16. It reads: You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5: 14-16, NIV Reflecting deeply on what this means has caused me to realize a couple of things.

1. First, one of the purposes of light is to make other things visible. One rarely walks into a room and focuses on the light coming from light sources. Or we rarely ever gaze at the sun. Instead, the source of light, wherever we are, serves a purpose to illuminate things around us. In addition, light democratizes visibility for everyone and to everything in the room. Rich, poor, big, small, tall, short, regardless of who you are, light provides equal access. Light exposes the good and the bad. Light does not discriminate.
2. Second, I have never seen a person shine a flashlight in broad daylight or in a room that is well lit. Think about it. We would never, in broad daylight, walk outside our homes or offices, and proceed to shine a torch as we walk to the bus or train station. Light adds value only in darkness. In a place where there’s light, adding more light has no value.

The more I thought about these realizations, the more I wondered: where am I shining light? If light only makes sense in places of darkness, doesn’t it mean I should go to, be drawn by, and immerse myself in places of darkness?

In Psalm 16:2, David notes,

I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” In essence, everything good about David, about me, and about you comes from the Lord. He wants us to let our light shine before others, that they may see this good that comes from him in order to glorify Him.

Practically speaking, as an investor or entrepreneur, what does it mean to let my light shine? The beauty about Jesus, the Gospel, and Christianity is that God meets us where we are but he never leaves us as we are. This means, the answer to that question will look differently, depending on where you are and how fast you choose to move. But here’s one way we can shine some light in the world for faith driven investors and entrepreneurs: Investing and creating markets to tackle poverty and increase human flourishing.

Globally, fewer than 7% of people live on more than $50 a day ($18,250 a year). In Africa and South Asia, the percentages are 0.3% and 0.1% respectively. This means that everyday billions of people wake up and struggle immensely to feed their families, educate their children, and manage their ailments. In addition, in many poor countries governments struggle to provide social services to their citizens and overt corruption is rife.

The lack of infrastructures, institutions, and the presence of corruption–not to mention the poverty rates–are reasons enough for capital not to flow to these countries. And so, capital flows increasingly to wealthy countries where governments provide services, infrastructures work, and institutions generally serve people. It’s simply “safer” and more “sensible”.

From the standpoint of development and prosperity, what does darkness look like? It looks like poverty, corruption, and weak or struggling institutions. As a faith driven investor or entrepreneur, shining light would look like working to create inclusive prosperity in the regions of the world where there is immense lack. To be clear, this is different from charitable donations to help the poor. This is more about investing to fundamentally change the systems in a region.

The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

In that book I was fortunate to co-author with the late Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen, we wrote about a particular type of innovation called, market-creating innovations. These innovations create new markets by transforming complicated and expensive products into simple and affordable ones thereby making them more accessible to the population. When this happens, jobs are created, taxes are generated, and culture is changed. Consider the impact of the Model T in the United States. What would it look like if faith driven investors and entrepreneurs accelerated prosperity in poor countries by investing intelligently in market-creating innovations?

Practically speaking, it would look like assessing where we invest our capital and where we choose to build businesses designed to serve people. It would mean allocating capital to places where most people, especially nonChristians, would question your decision. It would mean bringing a high level of integrity to the way you do business to regions in the world where integrity is simply an utopian ideal. From an investing and entrepreneurship standpoint, this would shine our light so bright that the world will see and glorify our Father in heaven.

We do not turn on a flashlight where there’s light. As Christ-followers, let’s seek out the darkness in the world and let our light shine. For light only matters where there’s darkness. Image used with permission.