by David Scott Robertson
So you didn't win $20,000,000 in the lottery.
At least you had enough money to feed your family this week.
So you don't drive a Lexus.
At least you know the joy of reliable transportation.
So you don't live in what some would call a mansion.
At least you live in America where you can freely choose to live anywhere you want.
So you don't wear the finest and most fashionable clothes.
At least you own a coat to keep you cozy warm on a chilly winter morning.
So you don't have a big, lucrative position in a ultra successful career.
At least you work hard and honest and earn a decent living.
I suppose the comparisons in standards of living could go on endlessly but we don't need to in order to make the point.
The point is that wherever we happen to fall on the socio-economic scale, there are far more things of priceless value that money CANNOT buy than money CAN buy.
If you had $1,000,000 in the bank right now, would it affect the taste of your food?
Think about it.
You don't need taste buds to live but my oh my don't they increase the enjoyment of eating? If you can eat, that means you're alive. If you can eat, that means you have teeth, an appetite, and food readily available, and more than likely friends or family to socially enjoy the meal with. Once the food is eaten, your body uses if for energy. The energy gained from eating allows you to accomplish all sorts of things.
Finally, your body digests the food and eliminates it. All this happens without you even thinking about it. The only time you think about it is when these bodily functions don't work and then you'd gladly spend all the money you had in your bank account to get them to work properly if it were possible.
The joy and benefits of eating and tasting your food is just one example among thousands of simple pleasures that we take for granted that money CANNOT buy like…
Peace of mind, contentment, personal satisfaction, accomplishment, integrity and character, favor and a good name, the love of a committed spouse, the admiration of a child, the enduring fellowship of a faithful friend, the respect of a peer. Abilities, capabilities, faculties, opportunities, giftedness, talents, intelligence, reasoning, are but a few examples among innumerable privileges that money CANNOT buy. Money may be able to rent happiness but it CANNOT buy most things of TRUE value. (How you define "true value" will determine what kind of man or woman you are.)
The most profound expression of "true value", to my view, is found in the context of the spiritual realm. It's in the spiritual realm where things that on earth are perceived as "in-valuable" become "un-valuable".
For example, money can't buy salvation.
Money can't buy right standing with God.
Money can't buy access to heaven.
Money can't buy eternal life.
Money can't buy what the Bible calls "abundant life" (John 10:10).
Money can't bribe the devil to leave you alone or garner the favor of God to bless you.
Money is amoral -- neither good nor bad. How it is used and enjoyed or abused and misused is what we have to give a stewardship accounting to God for one day. It's been said that money makes a good servant but a terrible master. True indeed.
Therefore, my advice, for the reader today in this short thought is to not to worry about what you don't have nor boast in what you do possess. Simply be content with what you have, where you're at, whom you are with, and what you are while at the same time balancing that contentment with a continual dissatisfaction with status quo and perpetually pressing on to be all you can be for God.
The Apostle Paul wrote it much better than I ever could:
(Phil 4:11 KJV) Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
(Phil 4:12 KJV) I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
(Phil 4:13 KJV) I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
DSR
7/28/03