Tag Archives: greed

The Monster in the BackYard

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Financial success is a difficult destination to reach. Happiness is an elusive state of being. Why is it so darn hard to have one, if not both of these?

There’s a silent, deadly monster roaming in your backyard eating your money and mauling your happiness. It’s time to face it and kill it. The monster is GREED.

No–wait! That can’t be! I’m not GREEDY. I’m broke. I don’t have a million dollar penthouse. I don’t own ten factories that I outsourced to foreign countries at the expense of hard working American citizens. That can’t be me!!

Yup…I hear you. That’s exactly what I said. To be fair, let’s review the symptoms of greed and see how we all fair. Here’s an excert from an article in Christianity Today (Robert C. Roberts, April 8, 1996, pp 29-33):

A sure sign of greed (the disordered desire for wealth) is that your wanting things always outruns your having them. Greed is the successful businessperson who tells you, without blinking, that he is on the bring of poverty. It is the middle-class couple who says they cannot afford to have another child. It is “upward mobility,” the climb that ends not in satisfaction and peace, but in exhaustion, disappointment, and emptiness. “Sweet is the sleep of (poor) laborers whether they eat little or much; but the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep,” says the Preacher (Eccles. 5:12). Greed in its advanced stages will not let us rest content.

 

Jesus connects greed with anxiety: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed . . . Do not worry about your life . . .” (Luke 12:13-34). Anxiety about our “security” drives us into a pattern of acquiring more and more, but the acquiring of more also leads to anxiety…

This article hit me hard. I have a good job, yet I complain about being broke and in poverty. I am a middle-class person who has said every now and then that I couldn’t possibly afford another child. If I had put lotion on every time I wrung my hands in anxiety, I would be baby-silk smooth.

To truly be successful and happy, we’ve got to kill this monster in our hearts.

Let me know what you think of this article! Is it right or way off?

Why the National Debt and Your Debt Are Linked

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In our current situation in America, we find ourselves in a financial world of hurt. Yesterday, I was speaking to a man in my congregation who is extremely concerned about his families financial stability. He had just landed a dream job at a nearby factory, but shortly thereafter was laid off. He told me, “We were just about to the point where we were out of the hole and able to start saving. Now, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

I don’t think this is late breaking news for you, but we are in a financial recession in the US of A, and my friend isn’t the only one feeling the pain. I’ve heard lots of talk over the past year as to why all of this happened. Most people (especially Occupy Wallstreet types) want to blame greedy, faceless coporate CEO’s and bankers for our country’s fiscal blight. But I think there is a simpler, economic reason.

Don’t get me wrong. I think greed is definitely in the mix, but it’s not the greed of corporate America that’s really killing us. We’ll talk about that in next week’s blog posts. Right now, let’s start with an easy to understand, more objective issue. If you want to know why we are in the place that we are in right now, I can give you one word.

Debt.

And lots of it.

Debt is the killer of good economies. Personal economies, national economies, global economies–they’re all the same to this monster. Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman even called our national debt a “national security problem” in a speech to Darla Moore School of Business students in South Carolina.

When you have 15 trillion in debt, when you have 80, 90 percent debt to GDP as a ratio, that’s not a debt problem that’s a national security problem…

While I don’t know enough about the man to recommend him to you for a vote, I do think he’s on to something here. Debt is a security issue for the nation and for individuals. The two are linked.

A recent report from Reuters.com explains that recessions “occur when firms and households are forced to reduce their excess debt by cutting consumption and investment.” When you’re in debt, you can’t go out and buy the latest, fancy things. Thus, the economy fails.

Debt is the rock hanging over your head waiting to fall while you juggle through life’s demands. All it takes is one medical emergency…one car wreck…one layoff…one termination–and the rock falls! Perhaps that is why Proverbs tells us to get serious about getting out from under this rock (chapter 6:1, 2-5).

My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger…So do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go—to the point of exhaustion—and give your neighbor no rest! Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.

This year, my friends, lets make every effort to free ourselves from this killer called debt! To start off, tomorrow I’ll give you a run down of what God has to say about debt.