We care a lot about money

Apparently, a recent study says the 100 highest-paid private-sector executives will have earned an average Canadian's salary by 9:46 a.m.

Apparently, according to Forbes, people like Howard Stern, Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston (surprising this combo is mentioned considering the other news about Brad Pitt), Steven Spielberg, etc. were among the top paid entertainment industry celebrities.

Good for them, I say. But what does this focus say about the priorities of our world? We talk so much and celebrate so much about money and those that make money. And yet we think so little of those that are poor and needy. Or of other values.

The recent movie (which I liked, btw) "The Pursuit of Happyness" (read my review of the movie), while focusing on the time of Chris Gardner's life when things were dark and he was poor and homeless, ultimately celebrates one who is now a millionaire. Would a movie be made of any of those in the street who are now poor and have remained poor all their lives? I don't think so.

The point I am trying to make is that money is virtually a "god" to us today. We revere it and those with it. We look down on those without it (maybe not consciously, but we nevertheless do) and fear to not have it. We believe it will make us happy, we often feel it is necessary to give us meaning and purpose, we celebrate it.

It should be nothing but a tool, but we pursue it as if it were more, something of eternal value, of extreme consequence, or of transcendent power.

Think about it. What can money really do, ultimately? Yes, if you have a lot of it you can buy a lot of things. But can it bring families closer together? Can it repair marriages? Can it bring children into the world? Can it end wars? Can it make you laugh like a good joke? Can it...?? I can go on, but I'm sure you see my point.

Money is of no real consequence in the grand scheme of things. It cannot stop us from dying either. Yet we do revere it so. The pursuit of money is such an underpinning to the fabric of our society. Again, it is almost a "god" to us. An idol.

Yet God says You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3). We ignore Him so often (if not always) in our lives and turn to money instead.

The play You Can't Take It With You really speaks to the fact that the stuff of this life is really meaningless. What good is it to have so much stuff when you are just going to die anyway. You cannot take any of the stuff you accumulate in this life with you. Jesus told a parable with a similar, but more powerful, message in Luke 12:15-21, talking about the rich man who had many things, but then God told him "You fool! This very night your soul is required of you.".

This is something, I think, all of us need to seriously think about. What is of value? Money, which is temporary? Or God and family and friends and helping others? I think the latter, not the former.

Yet almost every message of society generally speaks against this...

For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Ecclesiastes 9:5