“For we brought nothing in to the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of this world” 1st Tim 6: 7 Amplified Bible
I took some time out this strike break to meditate on 1st Timothy 6 and a story readily came to mind with me being the offended actor. This happened in January this year when I realized that the generator I procured could not power my AC; I decided to purchase a ceiling fan so I went to a near by store and I bought one for 3.5K naira. I called the electrician to mount the fan and the first question he popped was how much I made the procurement. I told him and with a scream, he told me I had been cheated with a margin of 1K. This obviously became an issue with the guy that kept advising me to return it but I did not want to go through the hassle because of the activity involved to get back the 1K; I knew that if I inadvertently succeeded to collect the 1K, I would lose more than the 1k.
The aforementioned scenario always makes me question the overwhelming desire to make money: The desire to obtain money only to throw away to peeps that are ready to scavenge on your ignorance. This happens almost all the time to peeps that chase huge remuneration in exchange for their time but before I delve deeper into this subject, I would love to clarify a particular question that elude so many. What is money? This three letter worded question opens up various light to obvious darkness that envelopes the human specie. Whenever the word money comes to mind, there are so many images that come to mind but the summary of everybody’s image is their desire. Money is inadvertently linked to desire which if one takes a deeper view would see that the paper with various prints of denomination is not money. That currency you hold in your hand is not money because the Almighty God can never compare himself to that paper you squeeze everyday and place in your wallet or purse.
Then, what is money? Money is a spirit just like the Almighty God though this may not sound right to a lot of people but that is what it is. It is a spirit that is obviously connected to power of possessing your desire. The bible corroborates this fact by saying “the love of money is a root of all evil”. The love of this spirit called money is a root because as we all know, every physical appearance has a spiritual backing; the root which is also the vine was described by Jesus in John 15 when he said except you are connected with the true vine, you cannot bear much fruit. So the root of any physical portrayal like evil is spiritual. Now what does this spiritual entity offer? It offers the power of control, which is an ingrained obsession in every human being. You want better remuneration or greater profit to have better control of your future, your life, your wife, your destiny, etc. We crave for this control so much that we fail to understand that we can never be in control of our lives. Once this is ascertain, I am sure the obsessive accumulation of this liquid currency or any form of legal tender be it asset, investment and savings may require a strong review.
I hope I am not beginning to piss some people off but relax let me land. I wanted to purchase a Rav4 recently and made some enquiries on specs, spare part availability and cost. I was not really moved by the cost because it would only require some savings on my part but I was a little wary about the message this may send to my neighbors and relations who obviously have no idea of how much it may cost me to obtain such car. They think it would cost 1.8 million for a 1999 tokunbo but because of my connection with car dealers, I was able to get the car for less than 450k including shipping from the US; trust me, this is a car with all the features – AT, AC, leather chair, 1K Kilometer mileage, and my favorite color. Now some peeps would be wondering, how true this info is but it is actually true, you only need to be connected to the right source not have the right money. This example itself shows why your dreams should not be associated with money, why you mustn’t allow your adrenaline to pump at the mention of making more money because more money in several cases means more challenges and if your mind is not developed to handle this challenges, you may end up living worse than the person that posses far less than you have.
The subtlety that money brings is the worship that it commands; it forces you to give it praise and worship every single day in form of hard work, corruption, deception in order to feel its presence. You neglect the Almighty God and prefer to do your daily devotion with it. Since it offers a pseudo control, projected by those in your environ that brand themselves with all form of lies from the latest car to the latest designer. This is surely a delusion and the faster we get a grip, the better we are able to control the spirit called money. The peeps that love it more than God are those who cant even let it go, who hold on to it with their dear lives and can not risk losing it. Knowing how to spend money the right way is far better than saving it; it is the wisdom of appropriating money that makes one wealthy not the accumulation of money.
Since, control is the theme of money acquisition because no average rich man is interested in sharing his secret of making money less he loses control. We do not spend money because we lose control, we are afraid of investing because we lose control; everything is premised on control even your job. So I sought for ways to lose control rather than have this spirit called money control me and an SMS from a dear friend hit me this morning; it reads “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, when a man found it, he hid it again and in his joy went and sold all he had and bought the field”. I wonder why the person sent me the SMS but I wasn’t bothered for too long because it gave me a way understand the Kingdom in a new light. It simply means being able to give up everything for your true desire (which you may or may not be aware of) but I have a feeling that the person that sent it to me meant another thing entirely. Well, that’s the Holy Spirit for you with interpretations to meet our personal needs.
Another issue I have with money is how it controls time. The only thing one should cherish more on this earth is time. The time we have on this earth is limited and what we do with it counts a lot since there are conflicting stories about second coming. Why not live your life to the max? Why live all your life for money to get control of what you can never get control of. Well hope the point is well taken because I would be tackling the subject of the Kingdom of Heaven succinctly after the Blogger’s competition in July. There are so many write-ups and they are all too cool; I think I have to extend the number I would be featuring to 15 instead of the twelve earlier mentioned and you my dear readers have the right to vote for these outstanding 15 write-up: Check Dipo Tepede.POeT in July for this outstanding competition. Let’s get back to the subject.
I have looked for ways to present my mind on this subject without drifting into various other issues. I gauge my wealth first and foremost on my relationship with God because you can not sustain wealth without his wisdom. Then I move to the network of friends I have; with friends, you get informed; with the implementation of the right information you would never lack money. This how I place how rich I am, not with the abundant of money I have but on the relationships I nurture. By March this year, my account was in red to the tune of a million but by the end of May, I was on million + not to mention the assets acquired. This is simply because a friend gave me info on money making scheme that I was comfortable with. Now, all my monies are tied to one project or the other and I am barely liquid.. This is how it is; do not let money control you instead control money for the good of all.
