The Cost of a Penny

One Penny

I was thinking this morning.... about the one cent coin (penny). 'I should be thinking of one Kobo, shebi?' Don't blame me, we no longer have one kobo in Nigeria. After Arsenal were beaten by newly promoted Sheffield United last Monday, their new captain Granit Xhaka was roundly criticised for his performance in the match. Many called him a disaster and asked that he leaves the club. Since Xhaka joined Arsenal from Borussia Monchengladbach in May 2016, Arsenal has invested so much in him, paying him £100,000 a week. He was even handed the captain band after a blind ballot this October, yet he chose to disappoint everyone. One fan was so angry with his performance that she wrote 'WHAT EXACTLY DO WE NEED XHAKA FOR? To make naive fouls, give the other team momentum? Keep players onside? Get red cards? Hospital passes? Lose the ball? Miss headers and tackles? Blame other players?' As I read her outburst what occurred to me is that Xhaka is like the one cent coin that cost more to make than it is worth. 

Do you know that it cost 1.5 cents to produce the one-cent coin (a penny) and only 12.3 cents to make the $100 bill? 'If the cost of producing the penny is higher than its value, then why is it still being produced?' You may ask. Because the cost to make it is higher than its value does not mean it is useless. The penny is needed to complete the currency denominations. Arsenal has invested so much to make Xhaka, but like the penny, he is worth a lot less than what they have invested on him. 

Hmm!! This is so true for many around us. Some friends are like the one cent coin. You invest so much in them to make the friendship work. You visit, spend your money to call and even support them but at the slightest opportunity they wreck the ship of the relationship. When you least expect, 'they fall your hand.' Like one cent coin, it is costing you so much more to make the relationship work than it is worth. 

Note that the one cent coins are not useless, it just cost a lot more to make them than they are really worth. When a child attends a public school in Nigeria but ends up being a very successful executive of a multinational organisation, he is like a $100 bill, that costs so little to produce compared to its value. But when you send your child to a very expensive private school, but he drops off school before graduating to become an NFA (No Future Ambition), he can be akin to a penny that cost a lot more to produce than it is worth. My prayer is that our children will be like a hundred dollar bill, that costs just about a tenth of one dollar to make. 2nd Cor 9:6 'He which sow bountifully shall also reap bountifully.'

Happy Sunday.

.....Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey.