When you purchase a new suit or jacket, the pockets are usually sewed up and must be clipped in order to get into them. Without a proper philosophy of money and wealth, you won’t attract anything into your pockets because they’ll still be sewed shut. A proper view of finances will open your pockets to receive the abundance of life that God wants you to have.
A Lesson from the Future
In the television series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” 23rd century human beings have eliminated the need and desire for money. This has helped them transcend their roots in the Earth and take wing to the stars and other planets. However, even though humans have overcome the need and desire for money, there exists an alien race of mercenary merchants whose sole purpose for existence is to amass interstellar currency and whose sole measure of personal worth is the amount of their personal wealth.
Gene Roddenbury, the creator of Star Trek, was an astute analyst of the human civilization of the 20th century. In his futuristic alien race obsessed with and blinded by money, he saw a present-day parallel in societies all across planet Earth. These beings serve to teach the lesson that money is not a sound or solid basis for human endeavor or relationship. When money is the primary end that is sought through the energies of life, it soon becomes the means for measuring the value of those energies and of life itself. When this happens, life actually becomes impoverished because it no longer is seen to have dimension or possibilities or worth beyond the “bottom line.” Life is viewed as the ability, or inability, to accumulate wealth in order to secure worth. The absurdity and poverty of such an understanding of life is well summarized in the words of a bumper sticker I saw recently: “The one who dies with the most stuff wins.” I wonder what the prize could be.
Side Bar: Long ago it was realized that money could obscure a person’s self-worth and value to humanity. One day a rich man of a miserly disposition visited a wise sage, who took him by the hand and led him to a window.
“Look out there,” he said. “What do you see?”
“I see men and women and little children,” the man replied.
Then the sage took him to a mirror. “What do you see now?”
“I see myself,” was the answer.
“Behold, in the window there is glass and the mirror is glass also. But the glass of the mirror is covered with silver. No sooner is silver added than you cease to see others and see only yourself.”
Roddenbury appears to be asking the question, “what would civilized life be like without money?” Would it be some cosmic communist collective devoted to “share and share alike?” Where would the resources come from to support and sustain every human life? How would such resources be fairly allocated and distributed so that the ones with the greatest need would receive the greatest share? Would these resources be of sufficient quality to enable people to grow and expand their personal attributes and natural abilities? Would there be enough to go around?
Roddenbury answers these questions by introducing a machine called the “replicator,” a ubiquitous device that creates whatever one desires literally out of thin air. All required resources for living and growing could be summoned at the moment they were needed or desired in the necessary quantities with no waste or want. Of course this is pure fantasy. However, there is more to this story.
With the replicator, Roddenbury was able to divorce resource development, acquisition and distribution from all work activities. Twenty-third century human beings didn’t have to work in order to obtain the resources necessary to sustain and develop life. These celestial citizens worked for the pleasure of self-expression and to apply their talents and energies to making ever-increasing contributions to the greater good of human civilization. Work was an end in itself and not a means to obtain money in order to secure resources necessary for survival and development. By separating work and money, work became wealth because it no longer needed to be performed for money. Wealth and money were severed from each other for good. Instead of money, what one did to contribute to the greater good and to the accomplishment of the collective mission was the measure of personal wealth and worth.
I think we 21st century beings can learn a valuable lesson from the Star Trek generation of the future when it comes to how best to manage money and the resources it buys. If we could learn to view work as an end in itself and not merely as a means to obtain money, then the experiences of our work would become the wealth we acquire regardless of the amount of money it produces. The issue here is that work builds character, good work builds good character and good character is true wealth. Work, then, becomes the means for wealth not by what we get for it (money) but by what we become by it (character).
Good character produces a wealth of happiness, healthfulness and personal fulfillment that money cannot buy. There are many things money can buy and just as many it can’t. Money can buy a house but not a home, a bed but not a good night’s sleep. Those things it cannot buy must be attracted into one’s life by good character. Otherwise, they will remain elusive and, without them, life becomes impoverished even in the midst of monetary wealth.
Now that we’ve established a proper view of work, money and wealth, we need to examine the means of “fleshing out” such a philosophy. What does it take to actually practice building a “wealthy character?” In a word, it takes discipline.
Discipline and Regret
Aside from physical pain, there are really only two other types of pain that human beings experience. Both are more psychic than physical, although, in both cases, there can be unpleasant physical manifestations. One is the pain of discipline; the other is the pain of regret. The latter occurs as a consequence of the absence of the former.
Pain of Discipline
Author and columnist, Erma Bombeck, commented that the trouble with life is that it’s so “daily.” Likewise, discipline is a daily decision. As anyone who resolves to “lose some weight” or “get into shape” soon discovers, getting from “deciding to do” to “actually doing” can involve a tremendous amount of agonizing effort.
Once the implementation of the resolution occurs, the changed behavior results in pain because new behaviors must replace the old ones. Neurological research has indicated that when a person changes a fundamental belief or opinion which, in turn, determines behavior, the brain undergoes a series of nervous sensations equivalent to distressing torture. It is when this distress is fully felt that the attempts at changing behavior often fade into forgetfulness. Our natural desire is for comfort and predictability, not challenge and change. Aristotle recognized the courage and difficulty of self-discipline when he said: “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
Discipline can also be painful in that it is a process that involves giving up in order to go up. It is disconcerting to give up something of immediate desire in order to obtain something of value later. After all, there is always the risk that you won’t actually get the things for which you’ve sacrificed. But sacrifice is a required element of the equation that opens the pockets and attracts the wealth of life into them.
Pain of Regret
As both a businessman and a pastor, I’ve heard countless people remorsefully utter the following phrases: “If only I had . . .;” “I wish I had . . . ;” “I should have . . . .” These are words that express deep, soulful pain. When spoken, they proclaim the stark realization that life could have been better than it is now. They are blatant admissions that life is the way it is because of personal choices made and actions done or left undone. This pain of regret can endure throughout a lifetime and often causes the rest of one’s life to descend into bitterness and despair.
Hersell Wilson, an early 20th century social commentator, said: “The things you do that you don’t have to will always determine who you are when it’s too late to do anything about it.” None of us have to exercise discipline in any aspect of our lives. We are certainly free to choose to do nothing to make something of our lives – to wind up being a nobody by not helping anybody, including ourselves. Self-discipline is voluntary. But there is a heavy price to pay when discipline is not chosen in the area of finances. When it’s too late to earn the necessary money to pay the bills, the bills will arrive. When it’s too late to save enough for retirement, retirement cannot be taken.
The pain of regret is enormous in comparison to the pain of self-discipline. If your pockets are bare, check to see if the way you view money, wealth and work is actually keeping them sewed shut. If you determine that they are, indeed, sewed shut, what can you do to open them up in order to receive the abundance God has in store for you?
Side Bar: If your character is not attracting wealth into your life, ask yourself, “What’s really getting in the way of that happening?”
“An enemy I had, whose face I stoutly strove to know,
For hard he dogged my steps unseen wherever I did go.
My plans he balked, my aims he foiled, he blocked my onward way;
When for some lofty goal I toiled, he grimly said me, “Nay!”
One night I seized and held him fast, from him the veil did draw. I gazed upon his face at last and, lo, myself I saw.”
Steps to Receiving God’s Abundance
We are creatures fashioned in the image of God. To accurately reflect God in our lives, we need to yield to His desire for us. Whenever we submit ourselves to God’s desire for our lives, we broaden and deepen our character as spiritual beings and thereby become capable of receiving spiritual abundance, which includes all wealth.
The act of submission is in choosing to do what God does in relation to creation. What God does in relation to creation is to give Himself. We develop a good character by giving ourselves to others. It is this good character, developed in spiritual obedience to God’s desire for us, that attracts all manner of wealth into our lives so that we might be optimally equipped to serve others.
What do you need to do to broaden and deepen your spiritual character so as to attract more of the abundance of God’s wealth into your life? There are just two steps to take.
Step One:
Tell God that you submit to His desire for you. Do this every day. This is the primary act of giving yourself first to God so that God can give Himself again to creation through you. From this moment on you will receive God’s abundance so that you can give to others. Whatever you give to others is a sacrifice of praise to the presence of God’s abundant life within you.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he immediately replied, ” . . . you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31). It is fascinating that Jesus added a second commandment. He was linking love of God with love of others (a neighbor is anyone within “loving distance”). What must be kept in mind, however, is that there is an order presented here. The first commandment is to love God with all that one is (and not, incidentally, with all that one has); the second flows from the first. How often do we attempt to serve others without first 1) knowing if they can benefit from our service, 2) if we have what is necessary to help and not hinder them, and 3) establishing that God has led us to serve them above all others. After all, our personal resources of time, energy and money are limited. The point is that only when we first give ourselves wholly to God can God show us to whom we can most effectively give ourselves.
Never forget the divine irony: you can’t give unless you receive; but, in order to receive you must give. Our understanding of this seeming paradox is this:
You can’t give to others unless you receive from God; in order to receive from God you must give yourself to God.
Step Two:
The discipline that will keep attracting God’s abundance into your life is to daily give yourself to those to whom God leads you without regard for return or reward. Remember the words of Albert Schweitzer: “Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid.”
When you take these two simple steps on a daily basis, you’ll find your pockets full of God’s richness. You’ll also discover that your true wealth is a good character that not only thrives in this life but also is filled with the abundance of God’s eternal life.
Ken Wallace, M. Div., CSL has been in the organizational development field since 1973. He is a seasoned consultant, speaker and executive coach with extensive business experience in multiple industries who provides practical organizational direction and support for business leaders. A professional member of the National Speakers Association since 1989, he is also a member of the International Federation for Professional Speaking and holds the Certified Seminar Leader (CSL) professional designation awarded by the American Seminar Leaders Association.
Ken is one of only eight certified Business Systems Coaches worldwide for General Motors.
His topics include ethics, leadership, change, communication & his unique Optimal Process Design® program.
Tel:(800)235-5690 Claim your free eBook, “How to Do Better Than Your Best in Anything You Do” by visiting the Better Than Your Best website.
