My meditations; Wealth

“You can’t break a principle, you can only break yourself against a principle,” I read these words from an article written by Chuks Nwabueze for The New Woman Magazine (available in stores soon) and today I think on how true those words are.

We all search for fulfillment; we want to know that we have been able to achieve something worthwhile that everyone can be proud of. Whether it’s the father who wants his son to be a lawyer by all means; or the mother who wants to take her place in society by marrying her daughter off to the highest bidder; or the child who just wants to be able to make a decision for himself without adult interference; or the man who wants to stack those million dollar chips under his belt just for the sake of it, we all search avidly for fulfillment. And most times, fulfillment equals money.

Money in terms of spending power, status, independence, honor, whatever, after all, money makes the world go round. Of course, the student who is looking for that First Class result in school will have the personal satisfaction of being ‘the best’ but what is it all for actually, -to get a high paying job so that one can be comfortable. Maybe I shouldn’t call it money; maybe I should say wealth, or riches, I think that encompasses it all better. We are all in that pursuit of happiness which is actually a pursuit of wealth.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God1; why is that? It is simple really. We send our lives amassing all kinds of wealth and then we go to church to alleviate our guilt. The rich man who wouldn’t sell all he had and give to the poor actually wanted to get into the Kingdom, he even kept all the laws from his youth2, and we all know how hard it is to keep the laws, especially in your youth, but he so much wanted it but he had a whole mass of wealth and he couldn’t let go. So nowadays, what we do as keeping all the laws, is that we go to church and give tremendously of the wealth we have amassed, we serve on committees, we sing in the choir, we are super friendly to everyone but as soon as wealth calls, we go running to it because that is what we have reduced ourselves to; wealth.

And in all of this, wealth is a wonderful thing that God created for us to have, for He knows that we have need of these things3. The First Law of the Kingdom is simple, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”4 But what we do is that we seek all these things hoping that it’ll make us happy and comfortable enough to go to church, like that is all there is. The law is simple; surrender yourself to God and everything else will be taken care of. Not that things will take care of themselves, but that things will be taken care of. You will still go to school to get that degree; you will still work to get paid; you will still read to have knowledge; but above all, you will know the eternal relevance of it all so that it will work for you, rather than enslave you.

The eternal relevance of what you do makes it yours so that no one can ever take it away from you. It allows you to lay up those treasures for yourself where neither moth nor rust can corrupt and where thieves do not break through or steal.5 In other words, eternal relevance keeps you protected from feelings of ‘not-good-enough’ or feelings of ‘she’s-better-than-me’ or feelings of depression because things didn’t go the way you planned, or feelings of ‘I-want-more-cars-than-the-Jones’;’ it keeps you from being cheated out of your reward or profit; it keeps you from having your life destroyed by mishaps; the eternal relevance that you can only find in the Kingdom of God.

So the rich don’t find it hard to get in because they are wealthy, they find it hard because they don’t have their wealth in the Kingdom; they have it rather than the Kingdom. God very much intends for you to prosper, the riches of the world have been laid up for you, the best of the best in this world has been handed over to you on a silver platter but to have it, you must recognize the hand that gives it and much more you must seek the face of Him that gives it.

Stop chasing fulfillment and surrender all of yourself to God. He gave you the brain you’re trying to force all that information into; he gave me these hands that I am using to type these words and the heart to search them out; he gave you that business acumen that you so want to convert to money and success so desperately; he gave you that creativity that seems to be bursting out every pore in your body; so let Him show you what He will have you do with it. Be more interested in ‘God things’ and you’ll see how beautifully your plans were made to fit into that same Kingdom. You’ll win both ways; you’ll receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come, life everlasting.6 Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and ALL these things shall be added unto you- you can’t break the principle, you can only break yourself against it.

1.Luke 18:25 2.Luke 18:18-21 3.Matt 6:32 4.Matt 6:33 5.Matt 6:20 6.Luke 18:29&30


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