(excerpt from the book Financial Fitness: The Offense, Defense, and Playing Field of Personal Finance by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady)
Principle 36 -
Get right with God, apply true principles in all areas of life including finances, pursue your stewardship, serve others-and leave impressing others in God's hands.
Note that it is not materialism to dream of a better life for your family and your purpose. Dream big, and start living the principles that will make your dreams come true.
However, it is materialism to let things run your life. Just like communism is when the commune owns you or socialism occurs when the society owns the people, materialism happens when you are constantly working for the stuff and things in your life. You don't control your stuff in such situations; it controls you.
You go to work for it, you worry about it, you fight about it with those you love the most, and you do whatever is needed too keep it and get more of it. That is materialism because your stuff owns you.
By the way, the worst materialism happens when you buy the stuff on debt, use it up or wear it out, and then still have to work to pay it off. This is a pretty good definition of slavery. You have to work for the stuff, day in and day out, but you don't get to look forward to it at all because it is already gone.
But, in contrast, it is not materialism if your stuff works for you. If you buy it today with money you earned yesterday, you can sit back and really enjoy it. You can milk all the benefit and enjoyment from it, and it will not sidetrack you from your true purpose.
Debt does the opposite. Not only do you get to keep working for it long after you bought it, you actually work longer and harder to pay off the interest. And the anxiety, stress, and frustration of this arrangement always detracts from your real stewardship and dream.
After all, you have a pipeline to your dreams to build, anything that blocks this isn't good for you. Debt is one of the biggest roadblocks of all. Make the proactive decision right now to not use consumer debt.
----------------------------------------------------
Get your copy of Financial Fitness HERE!
No comments:
Post a Comment