I
remember asking my father. Daddy, “Give me some money”, his response
“Money isn’t just picked like leaves from trees”
There are a few insights
I have picked up as I steadily run this marathon. Dave Ramsey teaches and says Personal
finance is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. Our lives strongly dictate how
we use money. Benjamin Franklin said, “If you want to think of being wealthy,
think of saving as well”. He also said, “Beware of little expenses, a small
lick can sink a great ship” Are you the type that is controlled by money, are
you the type who gets money and yields to its instruction there and then, and
are you the type who doesn’t understand that there are laws that govern money.
Listen while we continue to explore a few things.
Money
isn’t grown on trees
Money isn’t grown on
trees, it is worked for, money doesn’t
come by claiming, it comes by working for it, even the money that is given to
you by someone is money that was worked for, it is God who touches the
hearts of men to give out of their possessions. When one starts working, you
end up understanding that money doesn’t come as easy as we think, I understand
when we ask our parents for money and they say, they don’t have it, it was
until I started making my own and seen days where it wasn’t actually there. I
remember asking my mother to pay for my driving school, I told her, “mum I need
to learn how to drive and to have a passport” her response, “let us get a
passport first then you can learn to drive later”.
I wanted everything at a
go but wanted to learn to drive first because she had a car and I wanted to
learn how to drive. We pushed for the passport and got it and then the demand
for the driving school kept coming in but there were no results. At the time I
was interning and I had already learnt a saving culture and I was putting my
little allowances from the internship to use. I decided to pay for myself, I
realized that some things won’t be done for me, so I needed to work for them.
My driving skill has become handy over the years and it has taught me that some
things come when we have actionable plans in place. Putting little finances a
side after doing my research made it possible for me to achieve this.
God
owns it all
All silver and gold
belongs to God, he created money so it shouldn’t be made a god because it is
part of God’s creation. It is a good
servant but a poor master. Never let money master you, you must master it by
understanding the laws that govern money. It is written that the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof,
whatever God has created is his, every innovation, and every idea cannot be
without the supernatural wisdom of God. When you look at what is within
your stewardship, know very well that God has given you to take care and have
dominion over those things, what you possess that God has given is his. Our
work place, our positions of leadership are all the architect of God. Even
queen Sheba told Solomon that the throne he was sitting on is God’s throne.
Money
isn’t bad, it is our love for money that is bad
Money is so important we
need it but it shouldn’t be loved. The love of money is the root of all evil.
So money isn’t bad, what is bad is when you love it more than God, when you
trust it more than God, when you say you can’t live with it – Money has never given man breath, it is God
who has breathed in us the breath of life. Money is only a medium of
exchange – we use money to get goods, pay for services, pay our taxes, support
the needy etc. When greed comes in know that the force or spirit of mammon has
taken over you. You cannot serve both God and money, where your heart is where
your treasure is. Money should be the byproduct of our work and the services we
give, it shouldn’t be our goal in life.
What
makes us rich and wealthy is our values and the work we put in
There are so many people
who are rich but have reduced their riches to how fat their bank account is. We must be rich in a wholesome way and that
includes our values system – the things we stand for. Some of the poorest
people on earth are those who have a lot of money, whenever they talk, money
seems to be the only thing they live for, others are just surviving, living
from pay check to pay check, others their lives are taken up by their
possessions yet God says that the life of a man doesn’t consist in his
possessions. We are as poor as our next
door neighbor if they can’t feed, we are as poor as our very own people
(parent, sister, brother etc) whom we can’t help, we are as poor as our
community if we are the only ones doing well and they aren’t – it is a
process for everyone but we can lift each other by sharing ideas not
necessarily money, money should come when
it’s needed not wanted.
The true religion is when we care for the widows,
the sick, the poor, the needy, the oppressed, those facing injustice, these
issues are the weightier matters that we as individuals, family members, and
community leaders should embody so that the needs of those around can be met
and that they can be lifted up so that with hope, they can life others too.
I have seen great
development from community groups where people do cash rounds to enable each
one develop, as institutions and families and organizations these approaches
need to be embraced more, when one person develops, they could develop others,
gone should be the days where we only look at one person to meet the need of
everyone, everyone should take responsibility in building up one another. The
greatest financial security should come from our families, social networks etc
but the family should be core.
Build
Intellectual, social and skills capital
Some of the richest men
in the bible like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob were not just men who had a heritage or
that their lives were already predetermined, these men worked, then men used
their faith, they did not only profess or believe in the promise of God, their
belief made them work, they did not sit back doing nothing. A man like Jacob
came with nothing but left with something, he did not have money at the start
but he offered his skills as a service and left a loaded man, some people here
will say that all we need is capital, I guess I will say first start with
intellectual capital, skills capital and then go to money.
To be continued to part 3
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