Cash Flow Suffers From Empty Bank Account

Ed, my neighbor next door, has his moments of complaining about having too little money to spend. He claims his cash flow is nothing but a tiny trickle from an almost dry bank account. I tell him that is how it is for most of us. Mostly, folks are not swimming in money. Ed is certain that other folks have fat bank accounts that flash flood money their direction as they want it. If the grass only looks greener on the other side of the fence, perhaps the money also only looks more abundant on the other side of the fence.

When Ed was complaining about his lack of money, I said money brings out the best or the worst in people. I told him about Joi Lyn Honer who was using an ATM in Brigantine, New Jersey and found sitting next to the cash machine one thousand $20 bills. She turned the $20,000 into the police. It belonged to an armored car company, and she received a reward of $500.00 for her honesty.

Money tempts people to be either honest or dishonest. It challenges folks to be greedy or generous. It causes many to fall in love with it and be consumed by how much money they have or don’t have. It can be a source of pride or despair. The lack of money can be a motive for the crimes of theft, robbery and fraud. Lack of money to pay one’s debts was a problem in the time of Jesus. Failure to pay one’s debt could result in people being sold as slaves. Wives and children could become slaves in payment for debt as well as the husband.

In the Bible, Jesus talks of a dishonest manager who cheated his employer, to win favor for himself with those who did business with his boss. The dishonest manager was not faithful or trustworthy to God or his boss. He was shrewd about finding ways to keep himself taken care of when his boss was firing him for his dishonesty. Jesus told the story so that the Pharisees would hear it for they were lovers of money. It is not hard to find lovers of money, for money, has always been exalted among people. Sometimes it seems much harder to find those who want to serve God rather than getting and having more money.

The three rules of money are to get all you can, to save all you can and to give all you can to help those in need. The way we spend our money demonstrates, how much, we love God and our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus taught, “One who is trustworthy in a very little is also trustworthy in much. The one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

I tell Ed: “Money is that which, having not, we want; having, want more; having more, want still more; and the more we get the less contented we are. Money can pay your fare to every place but heaven.”

 

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