Above is a picture of the new Super Star Destroyer Lego set. When completed, the 3,152 brick set will be four feet long and weigh eight pounds. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted a Lego set more but at $400 I don’t imagine I’ll be getting it any time soon.
But sometimes I do imagine that I had $400 to spend on something like a Lego replica of the Empire’s flagship. Or I think about a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses I could purchase if I had $260. Or sometimes I think about the Movado watch I would buy if I had $2,000 lying around. I often find myself day dreaming about all the things I’d buy for myself if I had more money.
But then I think about how selfish I am and start to think about all the generous things I could do if I had more money.
I dream about buying wells in Africa so entire villages could have access to clean water. I think about giving a large sum of money to my church so they could build a new building which could be used to expand ministry. I wonder what it would be like to set up some sort of trust fund that could help pay for students to go to camp every summer.
In moments like that I think about all the great things I could do for God and his kingdom if I just had more money. Unfortunately, in that mindset, what I don’t have keeps me from serving God with what I do have.
When Isaiah stood before God’s throne, he didn’t tell God that he needed more resources in order to be sent. Isaiah didn’t tell God that he needed more money in order to serve God to the best of his ability. When God asked whom he could send, Isaiah simply said, “Send me.”
God has given us everything we need to accomplish what he’s called us to do. So instead of living in a fantasy world of “ifs” and “whens”, we need to be grounded in the reality that God has called us to serve his kingdom today. As Ephesians says, God has created us to do good works for which he has prepared us; it doesn’t say that God has created us to do good works which we need a little more money to accomplish.
We need to trade our “ifs” and “whens” for “nows” and “hows”.
How can your big money ideas keep you from serving God today?
It would be awful if you got that and lost a piece.
There was I time not long ago when I was so focused on getting my own finances in order, that I thought I didn’t have anything left to give to God. Now I understand that God doesn’t need money at all. Money was invented by people, not God, and is by its very nature, a means to an end (you can’t eat it after all). Though God sometimes chooses to use money, He has other ways of equipping people for His work.
This shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that one should not give money. The only tangible result of one’s labor that belongs to the worker and thus can be given by the worker, is often money in today’s world. If a person has money, then money should be given.