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by Rev. Fr. V.V. Paulose, Toronto, Canada
"And my God will meet all your needs, according to his glorious richness in Christ." (Philippians 4:19)
Is money troubling you?
We can trust that God will always meet our needs, not all our wants. Wants are satiable, but money is an exception. Money never satisfies. We are living in a culture of money (culture of commerce). Economy is the root cause for the existence of institutions - political, social and even religious.
According to the Bible, "For the love of money is a root for all kinds of evil." (1 Timothy 6:7) So the Bible advises, "Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have." (Hebrew 13:5). Solomon says, "Whoever loves money, never has money enough" (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Money comes and goes. To meet the basic needs, we need money. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you have more than required, then, it should be used to help others. But it is a problem when the motivation to make money is an end in itself. Then, we lose the purpose of making money - to be happy. Unless we learn to say "that’s enough for me", we can never be truly contented. This is like a game where the goalpost is constantly being shifted whereby, you never get a chance to win. Everybody knows money can’t buy happiness. Yet, there seems to be the feeling that we would be happier if we were rich(er).
One well-to-do couple was thrilled when their income rose to the level to own their dream vacation beach home. They looked forward to sipping pina coladas on their deck while watching the sunset over the ocean. With it, they got its own troubles of renovation, delays of construction, escalating costs and foundation defect etc. When one friend asked them how they were enjoying the house, they said, "Well, it’s a beautiful house, but we really enjoy it when we get away from there. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be able to get away and enjoy it as much we had hoped. The mortgage, the maintenance, the utilities and upkeep all made a big drain on our resources, so we are ending up spending more time at the office to pay for it, and we can’t seem to find the time to get up there as often as we would like."
We are the custodians for the money that God has entrusted us with. It is for sharing, not for accumulating, stacking and staling. We have no right to enjoy as we like till all the other people meet their basic needs. God never allows his children to beg, so don’t worry. If you have two jackets, one is for those who don’t even have one.
Jesus, we pray for the poor. Give them their basic needs. Let those who have more, give it to the needy. Those who are able and ready to work, give them a job to meet their needs. Let your richness make everyone happy. We ask this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
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