Burning Desire

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Can you get rich as a Christian?

Most people would say yes. Many would also say it was a sign of God’s blessing on your life.

Napoleon Hill (author of Think and Grow Rich) advocates thinking about riches every day, visualizing it, it becomes an all-encompassing mental focus:

Here is where a BURNING DESIRE will come to your aid. If you truly DESIRE money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to become so determined to have it that you CONVINCE yourself you will have it.

Think and Grow Rich (Emphasis mine)

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

1 Timothy 6:10

Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 5:10

The further I get into life, the easier it is to become convinced that this type of thinking is good, or correct, or necessary. It isn’t as obvious that I am falling for a BURNING DESIRE for wealth, it is the small(er) things. I need to save for retirement, I need to save for college, I want to be able to bring my kids to Disney World some day (with 8 kids that is a lot of money).

Of course, none of those are bad or problematic by themselves. They are even wise things to consider. But when they begin to become a focus, it is problematic.

I don’t know if I struggle with this more than most people as a business owner or not. I’m sure I spend more time with a Profit & Loss statement than most people, and have to watch the profit if I want to continue to have a business. One that provides valuable services, employment and supports multiple families.

But providing valuable services, employment and supporting families is an entirely different focus.

“You cannot serve both God and money.”

Matthew 6:24

I am at a conference this week that is all about growing IT businesses. Better service, better products, better profits. This is what I expect out of a conference for business owners, of course. But it’s dangerous, too.

All week, I am surrounding myself with people, sessions and lessons that are on some level, antithetical to the call of Christ.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

Mark 8:36

Moreover, it is a situation where there are pretty high potential downsides to success.

“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Mark 10:24-25

A secular Kara Swisher made this observation about many that she covered in tech:

the richer and more powerful people grew, the more compromised they became—wrapping themselves in expensive cashmere batting until the genuine person fell deep inside a cocoon of comfort and privilege where no unpleasantness intruded.

Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

So, can a Christian be rich and stay a Christian? I don’t think we answered that.

What we can answer, definitively, is this: it’s dangerous to focus on it, and dangerous to try, if that is the end goal.

This is a post I wrote for myself, it doesn’t matter if you never read it, so long I took the time to consider it.

Only a few hours after I wrote that, a speaker threw up this slide and stated, “That’s why we are all in business, to save money or to make money.”

Graphic with text reading "SAVE MONEY AND/OR MAKE MONEY" in bold white letters centered on a dark background.

There is more to business than to make money. It’s a requirement to stay in business, but it doesn’t have to be the driving why.

Ew

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Split-screen image with two sections. On the left, a video thumbnail showing a person diving into the Seine river with the Eiffel Tower in the background, video duration 4 minutes and 45 seconds. On the right, an article headline reads "Herculean Feat in Paris Olympics: Make the Seine Safe to Swim," with a subheading stating that officials are working to prevent sewage from contaminating the waters of the long-distance race course for the upcoming Summer Games. The article is a 4-minute read.

If I were one of those athletes, I think I would have a hard time stomaching this. You know that some will have issues that they (rightly?) blame on infested waters, especially if it is a long distance swim.

Maybe I’m Not an Imposter

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Imposter syndrome is something I struggle with All. The. Time.

It hit me Monday, what did I actually do?

So I made a list:

  • Business planning
  • Consulting for a new software company in the channel
  • Finished a custom conference table
  • Fixed an automatic paper folder
  • Printed and folder 240 direct mail pieces

And of course, that is in addition to more mundane things that are a part of the every day.

But it was looking at the list of things I did on a day I didn’t feel like I did much that helped me see: I’m not an imposted. Maybe I don’t have it all together, but I’ve got most of it.

There are many other days I feel like I didn’t get nearly enough done, or can’t point to some big thing I did. But the truth is, just doing my every day is a lot.

I’ve got eight kids, seven in the house.

I run — a lot. 15 miles is a slow week, (Before I got COVID, anything less than 30 miles was a bad week)

I own a small business where I wear three C-level hats (CEO, CFO, CMO).

And somehow, in all of that (*cough* while running*) I’ve listened to Audible for 45 minutes a day this year, on average. That doesn’t count anything read on Kindle.

Just living my life is enough to defeat imposter syndrome.

And you know what? I bet your life is the same. I’m sure we have more differences than similarities but I imagine if you took a third-party’s view on your own life, you’d find that you’re not an imposter, either.

No One is Filth, Everyone is Filth

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A few weeks ago a state senator in Oklahoma called LGTBQ people “filth”:

“We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state – we are a moral state,” Woods said. “We want to lower taxes and let people be able to live and work and go to the faith they choose. We are a Republican state and I’m going to vote my district, and I’m going to vote my values, and we don’t want that in the state of Oklahoma.”

I have only my anger — and sadness in response.

Anger because this is so far away from how Jesus treated anybody, spoke to anybody or how the New Testament speaks of people. Indeed, in a letter Paul wrote, he calls himself the worst of sinners.

Such language isn’t even used in the most oft-cited passaged against LGBTQ lifestyles. The harshest language in the entire New Testament is reserved for hypocritical religious leaders, whom Jesus calls “snakes.”

Sadness, because people will believe that this is what Christians believe and what the Bible says. Sadness, because it is what many Christians believe. I believe you can legitimately believe that someone is not living up to the standards set in the Bible and still respect them, see them as people, and realize that you are the same — because none of us are able to live up to those standards.

So let me condemn this language, it should never be said of anybody, and it is absolutely wrong to use it against people that already discriminated against disproportionately. Never ever ever.

Darfur

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The beginning of genocide is being observed in Darfur, again. I really have no words for this. The Wall Street Journal has a thorough article, documenting the killings, and the acts of war that have already began.

The very worst, most unbelievable, horrendous thing in the article was holding a mother at gunpoint while setting fire to her, house with three children all under 10 inside. None made it out.

I am unable to remotely comprehend this level of evil.

I am unable to comprehend, watching my children being burned alive.

I am unable to comprehend hearing their screams and being able to do nothing, except die with them, which I imagine I would, deathly preferable to life at that point.

I lack the wisdom of Solomon, and have not the faintest idea of what we, the international community, America ought to do. But doing nothing is only marginally better than complicit.

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