dissatisfaction

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 5:10

Loving money and things is a sure means to an unfulfilling life. Money is not to be a master but instead a servant to us. But when we love wealth and income we will be controlled by it as it becomes what we worship, much to our frustration and dissatisfaction. It is no secret that most psychiatrists practice to affluent people in upper scale locations. The vanity of wealth guarantees a steady flow of clientele who find their hopes unfulfilled by money and things.

It is helpful to consider that Solomon wrote these words, a man who wielded both absolute political power and unlimited, unprecedented wealth. He literally had it all, yet knew that the love of money was an evil that left him hollow. He knew this by his own failures as recorded in his musings in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Of all the hypothetical lifestyles I could chase, I am most tempted to believe that wealth will satisfy me. Some of the temptation comes from living for 20 years in the suburban excessiveness of Johnson County, Kansas. But I grew up blue collar, lower middle class, always seeing people who had more, but not quite truly poor in my own home. We always had food, clothes, and shelter. But I sure envied kids who got cars for their sixteenth birthdays, never worried about how they'd pay for college, and didn't have to shop at thrift stores for school clothes. I grew up close enough to wealth to worship it from afar. But now, I daily remind myself of the vanity of riches. I repent of the love of money. I choose to trust and know that only God can be my satisfaction.