money changes everything

It is amazing how money can turn the heart inside out, how it can change a man overnight. It has the power to set loose countless demons that ordinarily remain caged in the deep recesses of the soul.



We all know of well-knit families that become battlegrounds because of money. I have a relative who is no longer on speaking terms with her own mother, brothers and sisters. The reason: her father left most of his estate to her. She had taken care of him till the day he died, but her family would not accept nor respect the man’s will. They went to court. In the end, the daughter won, but the litigation took so long that lawyers’ fees had eaten up almost everything. There was little money left. What remained, however, was ugly emotional wounds and bitter conflict that are carried over even to this day.

How many friends have been lost because of money? How many friendships have been poisoned by greed?

The economist, John Galbraith, had an interesting explanation about why money is so attractive to us: “Broadly speaking, there are three basic benefits from wealth. First is the satisfaction in the power with which it endows the individual. Second is the physical possession of the things which money can buy. Third is the distinction or esteem that accrues to the rich man as the result of his wealth.”

Power, material possessions and the admiration of our peers: all things that money gives us—things that we surely desire because they are very attractive to us.

The problem is though that we can never know when enough is enough. When too much begins to turn on us and eat us up.

We have heard it said a million times that money, of itself, is not evil. It is the pursuit of it that is dangerous to the spirit. It is one’s fixation on it that distorts one’s view of life.

“The evils of riches,” writes D.L. Munby, “to the Christian, are the evils of distraction (the distraction that keeps men from thinking about God), the evils of a false dependence on a created order, and a would-be security that fails to take account of the inevitable fragility of human destiny on this earth. They are spiritual evils, not material evils, and it may be that they lead men to inadequate, not excessive, appreciation and enjoyment of the material universe; we tend to use, and abuse, material things, rather than to enjoy them.”

He is right. Look to the people who are obsessed with the hunt for money. They are so completely focused on it that rarely can you find them interested in the things of the spirit. Perhaps it is because we find it difficult to lead well-balanced lives. We tend to fall into excesses. We give too much time to the job, not enough to the family. Some spend too much time in church projects but neglect their children. We spend too much, borrow too much, and don’t plan enough.

The rich enjoy the power, prestige and the things money can buy, but don’t know when to slow down and focus on things of the spirit, on sharing and pursuing other more growth-giving activities that make a person and society better.

The poor who struggle to survive are just as focused on money they don’t have. Grinding poverty has stripped them of their dignity as persons, on their livelihoods even, and they passionately pursue money (usually unsuccessfully) just to survive. They cannot of course be blamed, but still the need for money is so acute that the things of the spirit are pushed aside. Perhaps this is why the missionaries are quick to say that it is difficult to preach God to people with empty stomachs.

The problem with money is that it is never enough to satisfy man and give him inner peace.

You can sense that this is so when you watch the very rich aggressively trying to become super rich. “They are”, said Isaac Walton, “money-getting men, men that spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented.”

In the end, money isn’t the problem. It is the pursuit of power, the addiction to material things, the seeking after recognition and status that cause men to change, to abuse themselves and their fellowmen, to forget God and, all too often, to self-destruct.