Most of us don't presume to speak for God, but it wouldn't hurt to consider His viewpoints. Keeping in mind what He has said about His own thoughts and attitudes will go a long way into discerning what He thinks about us and our actions.
Money is like gravel to God. It's common material stuff, but humans have assigned value for trade. What God really cares about is people!
In my pondering and reading on this matter I've made a short list of five priorities God has for us. He will see to them before He makes us rich. Or, God will use any riches we have already to accomplish His goals.
1. God hates pride and self-conceit. He allows us to come to an end of ourselves and become yes - even financially helpless, so that we will repent and turn to Him to humbly ask for His help. Then we must learn to trust and obey His words. It is with the gentle, gracious and self-giving people God really accomplishes great deeds.
2. Character-building means a lot to God. A lot of traits can only be learned by hard times. Do you want to be patient, grateful, forgiving, and spiritually enduring, alert and discerning or wise? Guess what - they're learned from opposite experiences! Like not having the money you need to carry out dreams right away.
3. On the other hand, we may be off on a wrong track, and God MAY be deliberately blocking all our efforts until we come to our senses and turn around. (I can vouch for this one too!)
4. From Bible stories, like Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob, we learn that God allows us to go down in hard times to train us for future leadership positions. Now, just thinking about this I could go off to write several other articles to develop this idea in more depth.
5. Lastly, it COULD be the fault of someone else, practically and spiritually-speaking that you are poor. Oh-oh, this might be a can of worms!
But think and reason carefully about it. What people have had power and influence over you? Might it be someone you haven't even noticed or thought about? (Now, let's not get angry and vengeful). Could it be you (or your parents or grandparents) offended someone years ago, and that one person is still influencing others against you?
How would God want you to clear THAT mess up?
What if we became cooperative with God on all five points? If we, like King Solomon, asked for wisdom to do our duties well in our area of influence, I believe God would bless us with riches and honors just as Solomon experienced.
How Solomon changed after he became rich is another study altogether!
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Ruth Marlene Friesen
The Responsible One
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