Ecclesiastes 5 – 6
Verse 5:10 hit home to me:
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
It’s not that I feel like I “love” money, I just obsess over it constantly. My attention is being brought to how much we spend verse how much we take in verse how much we pay off each month. Fortunately since 2008 we have been paying down debt and not adding to it. But our cash flow stinks and we have to watch every dollar. I hope that once the finances get straight, things will go better but I has been a difficult walk.
The biggest difficulty has been sharing the urgency with my wife. We both think we are spending fine, but end up devouring money that should go to pay off debt and I then over compensate by overpaying expecting that money to happen each month. Often it doesn’t and instead of communicating that we need to adjust there remains an unspoken conflict. Which when it does get brought up for discussion, things get ugly. Hence why I am reading Crucial Conversations so I can learn to control my temper and hopefully control the level during a discussion.
Verse 5:15 is one of those Biblical “clichés” that is often used:
As he came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand.
Bet you didn’t realized that came from the Bible, or maybe figured it was one that is often associated with the Bible, but not really there. When you think about it, this is true. Our striving for things is folly since we cannot take it with us. Although one can argue that the pursuit is to help our children after we die. But in reality often money may not corrupt the person making it, but often corrupts the offspring who live in the umbrella of it. I think of Paris Hilton, born to Richard Hilton of the Hilton Hotel fame. She was constantly in the news for parties and sex tapes living the reckless life of someone who never really earned a dollar but has access to millions.
Verse 6:3 is brutal but true:
If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.
I know many who live their lives toiling to make that extra buck and may seem happy but are in misery. They often live to work and work to live, nothing else matters. They family and happiness suffer for personal gain. Often the funeral says how great they were, but few cry because no one knew the person. They only knew his work and his money. It was as he didn’t really live at all.
Now I say this with a father who works at 80 and wonder if he is not doing the same thing. At the same time his “work” is teaching young Marines how to fly the FA-18 fighter. How cool is that! His “job” keeps him sharp and young. His worry is not about making money, but rather helping the men become better pilots. His joy appears to be in the relationships and the results. That may be the correct way to look at things! We are not told not to work, just don’t make it our focus.