Christian Living

Want To Be Rich Then Consider This

by Dr. Henderson Ward
09/30/16
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In the United States of America, there is a ferocious campaign going on in the presidential election due in November. Both candidates are very wealthy, with their combined net worth in the billions. In most countries the rich are highly esteemed, pampered and privileged, and people to be envied; or so it seems.

There is much hype surrounding riches, but the rich know only too well that riches are not all they are supposed to be, and certainly not without considerable baggage.

While it is true that many would kill to be rich, it is also true that some rich people have committed suicide, and many are deeply unhappy and fearful.

Here are six burdens some rich people have, some find them unbearable, some resent them, but none are able to avoid them. You should be very careful for what you wish for.

Burden number 1: You will be judged unfairly.

Regardless of how you got your riches, but particularly if you got rich overnight, you will be judged harshly and unfairly by the rest of the community. If while driving, your posh car knocked down a pedestrian, especially in a poor neighborhood, then people are willing to drag you out and molest you for knocking down an innocent walker. No one bothers with the fact that the innocent civilian ran across the road without stopping. In any altercation, accident or incident you are judged to be wrong and trying to buy your way out or being domineering merely because you are rich. If you work in an office then, your colleagues are warm and complementary to your face, but behind your back they are harsh and critical. Many of them may applaud your wealth and influence, especially if you can impact their careers, but regard you as a rich twit and clueless. The truth is that they simply detest your wealth and will rejoice to see you fall flat on your well-pampered face.

Burden number 2: Everyone approaches you for help.

Or so it seems for the number of people getting in touch with you by ordinary mail or e-mail or telephone or turning up on your doorstep is absolutely staggering. The sheer volume of these at times well deserving people puts you in a quandary. One of the problems here is that a polite rejection may be taken the wrong way and the person could become hostile and abusive. Another problem is that with so many people requesting help it is more difficult to know if you are helping the most deserving or simply the most persuasive. There is yet another problem here and it is this. Are you staffed to deal with such volumes of correspondence? Many rich people have no alternative but to employ additional staff, sometimes consultant staff, to deal with all this. Here arises another problem for if you are delegating staff to regulate what correspondence reaches you then you can easily be manipulated into doing what your staff wants rather than the other way round. For example, your staff may readily bin those letters from people that can scarcely write, or whose writing is grammatically very poor or hard to read, but these might be the very people most in need of your assistance and whom you may wish to help.

Burden number 3: You have acquired guilt.

This is an enormous burden to bear because this impact your psyche, peace of mind and even your self esteem. Following on from burden number two above it is absolutely the case that not everyone who seeks your assistance can or even should be helped. There will be many who are frauds, tricksters, outright liars and endeavoring to cheat you by bringing you into their scams. There are also many that you should help but funds are not unlimited and those you turn down, worthy though they undoubtedly are, can give you much guilt. You would not like to know that you refused help to a woman who was trying to get a life-saving operation for her child and the child subsequently died not having the operation. Or the man who asked for your help because he was at wits end to settle a debt and because he got no help committed suicide. The fact that these two individuals came to you and you had good reasons to think they were tricksters and therefore turned them down does not in any way lessen the impact. You might be a very compassionate person, but guilt acquired like this is often brutal, very impactful and can interfere with your sleep, concentration and even your normal day to day mood. This kind of guilt, in order to erase it, may need professional spiritual or psychiatric counseling over a period of time.

Burden number 4: People expect better/costlier gifts.

This is nearly always the case and failure to recognize this fact not only adds to people's resentment and criticism of you but to a few epithets behind your back as well. As always people who are more enlightened will offer you no criticism for your gifts because they understand that a gift is never an obligation and in any case it is the thought that counts. However there are many, especially family and close friends, who will criticize you as stingy, a skinflint and tight-fisted, cheap and mean-spirited if you do not measure up to their expectations. This can be very stressful because it means that on occasion you cannot buy that fancy trinket that has caught your eye, or you can't purchase that discounted but fascinating little item. I know that some people when you give them a gift will walk around stores looking for that same gift just to see what it cost. And whatever you do, do not buy anyone costume jewelry; not even studs for your dog's collar for if it learns that it is costume jewelry it is certainly going to be spiteful and take the first opportunity to bite you.

Burden number 5: You change your outlook.

This is not always a bad thing for you may very well change your outlook for the better; you might become more humane and compassionate. The change that usually takes place however is negative, cautious and has more to do with risk-avoidance. In life a certain amount of risk taking is healthy and normal; just think of the many pioneers who took great risk to open up the American West, or those who brought Christianity to the East, or the many entrepreneurs who risked everything they had to make some product or perfect some procedure. People who are rich, on the whole tend to be cautious, sometimes unnecessarily so, and go to extraordinary lengths to protect what they have. This outlook brings further problems because it makes the rich jittery about the stock market and other investments and sometimes it leads to psychosis because they think every setback is someone scheming to undo them.

Burden number 6: Your money may kill your ambitions.

Many people start out in life with noble ambition and then they get rich and that ambition disappears. This can happen with people who have acquired their wealth slowly but especially so with those who got rich overnight either through inheritance or luck, like winning the lottery. Sudden wealth is nearly always a bad thing and the newly rich are never prepared for all its ramifications. You only have to look around and see the disastrous consequences of the freshly rich to see my point and the mass media is full of their misdeeds. It is not unknown for gifted students, halfway into their medical studies, who aspire to become surgeons and doctors suddenly acquire wealth and quit their studies for good. Even Nobel Prize winners have been known to quit their organization and moved on with the money rather than donate it to the organization, or part thereof, and continue doing their work.

For good reason the Bible says, “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.” (Proverbs 16:8), and from that we get the pithy saying, “Little with contentment is great gain” and who can rightly argue with that.

It is not a sin to be rich, but riches have a way of sidelining God, and endangering our souls. Every believer should remember the words of Jesus, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

Enough said.

Books by this author you may wish to read.

THINGS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW (e-book)
Volume 1 – Five tough facts to be faced
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YX5NSI

STAND UP TO THE DEVIL  (e-book)
Volume 1 – You must first identify him
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005BQVLSS

BASTARD: A STORY OF REDEMPTION(e-book fiction)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006OF3SD6

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT ON GOD’S CLOCK (Hard copy)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002X78D16

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT ON GOD’S CLOCK (e-book)

http://tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-60799-630-9