Daily Devotionals

'Every Day Light' with Selwyn Hughes

Devotional: September 11th

For Reading and Meditation:
     Ecclesiastes 5:8-12

Solomon is being cynical again. The rich tend to be the leaders, he says, and the poor the followers. Those with wealth are usually the most influential, and they are expert at appointing officials to watch over officials. In time, the "red tape" becomes so thick the poor have no hope of cutting through it. Solomon is not the only one who is cynical about bureaucracy. His main point, however, is to show us that wealth is not everything. As Derek Tidball puts it: "Money ... increases your appetite but not your satisfaction." There is nothing wrong with possessing money, of course; it is when money is allowed to possess you that trouble comes. My father wrote on the flyleaf of my Bible the day after I was converted: "Money is a universal provider for everything but happiness and a passport everywhere but to heaven." Wise words which I have never forgotten. Wealthy people, says Solomon, find it difficult to sleep because they are worried about their investments. The more money you have, the more you have to worry over. Someone put it like this: "More money, more worry, more worry, less sleep." All this, of course, refers to those who have no sense of stewardship, for when money is surrendered to God, then money becomes a "trust" - a "trust" which is owned by God. We are not meant to be proprietors, but trustees of the Lord's money. God is the owner of everything on the face of the earth, and we are the owers. All giving ought to be out of gratitude for what He has given to us.

Father, help me in relation to material things to see that I am a steward, not a proprietor; a servant, not a master; an ower, not an owner. Change my perspectives so that I look at everything from Your point of view. In Christ's Name I pray. Amen.