“Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.” Ecclesiastes 5:10
This statement about sums up the normal mindset of people in our culture today. Have you ever noticed that regardless of what we have in life, we never feel “rich”. I have friends and relatives that have so much more than I do, but they don’t think they’re rich. My wife and I have so much more than some people in our own community, but yet if you were to ask me, my reply would be… ”I’m not rich.” Truth is we never feel that we are rich only because we know someone who is richer. The University of Warwick in the UK recently completed a study that concluded for most people, to feel happy about how much money they have, it has to be more than what their friends or colleagues have. As long as people know someone who earns more, they aren’t satisfied that they are really well off. What they have isn’t enough, no matter how much it is. No one seems to know where the true starting line for being rich is located. It’s because rich is a moving target. What I considered rich when I was a young kid now doesn’t even qualify amoung the rich and wealthy. What about the six-figure mark? Surely that’s an accurate indicator of being rich, right? Truth is, couples with a combined income of one hundred thousand dollars a year might say, “With property taxes and a mortgage and kids in college and braces and soccer camp and car insurance, and breast implants for my wife, it’s just not enough.”
Roughly 98% of Americans consider themselves not rich. And roughly 98% of people in developing countries would consider America’s poor to be rich.
The good news is, we are all rich! You may not feel rich enough at your standards, but you have wealth and opportunities other people don’t have. You are rich in someone elses perspective because what you have, they don’t. When we compare ourselves with the rest of the world, we have to acknowledge we may be the rich. Did you know that approxiamtely 50 percent of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day? Rich is relative, and we lose sight of how wealthy we really are when we focus only on those who are wealthier than us and the stuff they have compared to our stuff.
God has blessed us! However, He wants our hearts focused on Him, not on people’s stuff or more stuff. we need to identify our hearts attitude towards money so we can acknowledge our true riches. The question is not “What’s in Your Wallet?” but rather “What’s in Your Heart?”
