Faith

The Love of Money

by Jeff Drinnan
05/06/21
For Sale
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"For the love of money is the root of all of evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." -1 Timothy 6:10

Recently I heard on K-Love, the Christian radio station, that lately people have spent ten times as much on mother's Day gifts than they did just a few years back. The K-Love hosts pondered why, as do I.

What I think it may be is the materialism that seems to have been increasing since the Corona virus outbreak, with the accompanying media hype. People may be escaping through materialism.

Some time ago, my parents visited former inlaws. My mom remarked that there's no love in that household. "All they know how to do is buy each other gifts," she mused.

In my work as a vendor for a major retailer, I've noticed the effects of materialism. The store is crowded every day. Some of the customers are buying big screen, fancy TVs as well as other big ticket items. My company has a bin in the back room in this store. Even after Christmas, the store has been dumping stuff for other departments in our bin, which makes it hard to organize and find a place for our stuff. I was told by a store representative that only one or two foreign items could share the bin with us, and that I could put anything else not ours on a pallet.

Lately, after I moved some foreign items I was given the green light to move, a store employee confronted me about moving it. He explained that the store is getting more things for the upcoming holiday sales, evidently mother's day, and need the space. I got a memo that we were supposed to get more shipments that we merchandise! So what's going to happen when we get more stuff? There is so much stuff in the isleways -stock and displays- that it's often hard to get around. And they want more! On more than one occasion there were displays corporate headquarters wanted put up but the department head said there was no room for it!

This, of course, is driven somewhat by customer demand, although there is some wishful thinking on the part of the store. During the commercial Christmas season, the store put up three large holiday gift card displays in addition to the regular gift card display. After the holiday was over, excess cards had to be removed. It took much time to remove the holiday and other gift cards. Most of the cards got thrown out. There was a massive pile of the discarded cards by the trash bin!

The world has been exploiting Christmas to make lots of money at all cost. Now mothers day!

The love of money, greed, causes problems. People at the store seem to be uptight. Leaders strain to get things done and push their employees hard. They appear to be obsessed by selling lots of things. They seem to think of empty space as money lost! There are not only traffic jams with customers pushing their carts, but it's hard to negotiate the customer traffic with a working cart and the back room often gets jammed up, with nearly constant traffic.

This is evidence of the sour fruits driven by the love of money and things money can buy. You have to choose between the idols of this world and God.

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." -Matthew 6:24