God vs Money

Deuteronomy 8:3, 5

...人活著不是單靠食物，乃是靠耶和華口里所出的一切話。 你當心里思想，耶和華你神管教你，好像人管教兒子一樣。

...man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mout of the Lord. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

This has been on my mind yesterday after a casual chat with a friend who shares similar outlook on life and dreams for their family. Both of us and our husbands understand and take jobs and achievements in career as a tool -- tool to transport us to our dreams. So we could always exchange a seemingly comfortable state of life we have at anytime for an experience of a lifetime. We talked about this when she shared with me how many have questioned she and her husband's decision to move to China despite not speaking the language or knowing the culture at all. I replied her, half-jesting, 'The next time someone asks you this same question, maybe you should tell them that you came here precisely because you do not know anything about this place, so you could learn.' We both had a good laugh and agreed, 'Indeed!'

What also came to me was this,

Matthew 6:24

一個人不能侍奉兩個主。不是惡這個愛那個，就是重這個輕那個。你們不能又侍奉神，又侍奉瑪門（注：“瑪門”是指“財利”的意思）。

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Money is not evil. But being overly focused on money and material needs and wants definitely distracts one's attention from everything else -- is that not the same with all other things? How then can we claim to trust in God but is still praying hard for wants or hopes, and not God's will?

I have been thinking about conversations we've had with friends...worries about funds for children's future education, medical, retirement, child-births and having (or not having more) children (at all!), holidays, etc. Do we sometimes worry too much that we forget God is in charge? Are most of these worries justified?

Then, I was wondering, why do we worry about money all the time when we have a job? Worry we'd lost THIS job? Worry we'd not have a job as well-paying and high level as this? Worry we'd not have a job at all? Is it possible not to have a job at all if one is willing and happy to do any kind of work? God has blessed me with good training in my younger days when I had to be thankful that I even had a job -- any job at all, just to survive and pay bills; nothing more.

I was blessed with a thankful heart because of the hard life and constant fear I was raised in. Who would have thought there would be a youth born among the 'well-educated' 1970s who had to struggle and fight for opportunities to further education beyond secondary level -- I'm probably not the only one? Many with diplomas and degrees find it difficult to secure employment -- would it not be harder for me who was blessed with neither? I thank the Holy Spirit for the constant awareness I have of God's many blessings -- because of many earthly things I did not have as a child (loving family, opportunities for further education and other enrichment classes, expensive clothes and toys, etc.), I get to count my blessings now.

I pray for God's wisdom and for Him to soften my heart to learn all these with His compassion; for with my limited human's viewing points, I will not be able to see. What I CAN do in the meantime, is to be obedient to Him, be still and know that He is God, and only HE is in-charge. Amen! :)