Do not let me be too rich or too poor.
Give me only as much food as I need each day.
Proverbs 30:8
A special thanks to Matthieu
for his image at https://unsplash.com/@mathieustern
Every week I see folk lining up at my local supermarket Customer Services to buy their lottery tickets. I guess as they stand in line, they dream of what they would do if they won.
What would you do with the money if you were a winner? I suppose the old house is looking tired and a new house would do. Perhaps that holiday you always dreamed of. A top of the range car.
The big question I ask you; would you be any happier? Would you sleep like Don Quixote? I read that winning the lottery can be counterproductive to hippieness.
There was a man in ancient times who was a winner in a material sense. It was King Solomon. He was a young man when he took the throne and God asked him what he could do for Solomon. This youthful king asked for wisdom to rule God’s people, a noble request,
“So please give me a wise mind that understands things well. Then I will be able to rule your people properly. I will know the difference between right things and wrong things. I will only be able to rule this great nation of your people if you do that for me.” I Kings 3:9.
Well, God gave him wisdom. But, because of his humble desire, God gave him riches. He had gold, art, lavish buildings, a lavish palace, the pick of the most beautiful women in the kingdom and everything that money could buy. But it all went wrong.
One of God’s greatest gifts to man is free will.; the right to choose our own sojourn on this earthly stay. We can gain knowledge, but that depends how we use it. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. It is knowledge to know that a tomato is a fruit, but it is wisdom to refrain from chopping it into a fruit salad.
Solomon ruled wisely for a time, but his life went pear shaped when he stopped applying the knowledge and married wives that served false gods. He lost God’s favour. Fortunately, he turned around before his death and imparted one of the most profound words in scripture,
“Now I have heard everything, and this is what I have decided: Respect God and obey his commands. That is God's purpose for all people. 14 Remember that God will judge everything that we do, to see if it is good or it is bad. He knows even the things that we do secretly.” Ecclesiastes 12:13,14.
Solomon's experience teaches all humans a valuable lesson in life: no matter how much we have, we will always want more. That distraction becomes a god.
There is no greater prize that life everlasting, the gift God gives to the faithful.
“Scripture quotations are from the Easy English Bible Copyright © Mission Assist 2019 - Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1162807. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”