I’ve thought many times in my life that if I just had a million dollars all my problems would go away. I can even remember buying lottery tickets hoping to hit it big so I can be free of all financial worries. When we read about those who win the lottery we think how fortunate they are and what we’d do if we fell into that amount of money. The truth is money won’t buy you love, and money won’t end your problems. It will just change them. Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 5:11, “When goods increase, they increase who eat them…” You and I both know that no matter how much you make there is always a lot more month than there is money. Our expenses just go up when our income goes up. Chuck Swindoll has written, “When a man’s possessions increase, it seems there’s a corresponding increase in the number of parasites who live off him: management consultants, tax advisers, accountants, lawyers, household employees, and sponging relatives.”
Back in Ecclesiastes 2:7-8 we read, “I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house.” Imagine having to feed them! Imagine having to house them! Imagine the problems that they bring with them like health care. It goes on, “I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.” Who takes care of them? Who’s going to milk the cows? Who’s going to feed the livestock? He goes on, “I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.” Who is going to protect it all? Where will I store it all? He continues, “I got singers, both men and women…” You have to pay them all! Entertainment was probably a lot more expensive then than today. Further he concludes by saying he had, “…many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.” As many wealthy men know keeping women on the side is a terrible burden, not only with expenses, but on the emotions and health.
The needs always arise to take care of the increase! According to David Jeremiah the process goes like this, “The more you have, the more you want. The more you want, the more you spend. The more you spend, the more you need. The more you need, the more you have to have. Stop the world—I want to get off!” Phil Ryken summarizes the solution to this problem. He says, “The appetite for what money can buy is never satisfied. The only way to curb it is to be content with what God provides.” Ryken then quotes Charles Bridges who said that when our desires are running ahead of our needs, it is better for us “to sit down content where we are, than where we hope to be in the delusion of our insatiable desire.” Ryken concludes, “Rather than always craving more, we are invited to be happy with less because we are satisfied with God.” Paul told Timothy, “Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth” (1 Timothy 6:6).