Why God

Money is Important, but it Doesn’t Buy Happiness

Money is Important, but it Doesn’t Buy Happiness

Example above of a former friend of mine, Dr. Jim Rudisill, who lived on a boat to help the homeless. A classmate of mine (Johnathan Nixon) and I created the video above as part of a Documentary Studies course at Christopher Newport University.

While my tendency is to chase after pleasure, which I certainly do, I have seen from experience that true joy does not come from such things. The pursuit of instantaneous gratification merely whets your appetite for more. The nations with the highest rates of depression are among the most affluent. I have become convinced that man was born to serve, in a world where suffering, selfishness, meaninglessness, and apathy are integrally related. True joy is found in true Love, a concept rather foreign to our broken world. John 15:1-17 relates that when you combine divinely inspired objective truth with study, thought, action, & relational deeply relational connection with God, the primary expressed virtue is love, demonstrated by substantive benefit to others, & the result is true joy. While I am not an ascetic, I feel that pleasures that come with meaning are far sweeter than those that are arrived upon more artificially. As an example, bracelets that orphans made and freely gave you out of their poverty, tying them onto your wrists themselves as tears wet your face, are far sweeter than those acquired while shopping, reminding you of precious souls and joy-filled experiences that you hope to never forget.
 
At the end of my days, the pleasure, power, money, etc I spent time chasing after (which I certainly do) will matter little, while the moments of joy, looking into the face of an orphan who loves me, and some of the moments of pain, tired after long hours of work on public health amidst heat rash in India, might be cherished.
 
While I say that, it is very difficult for me to live in light of its reality, & I am much further than I’d like to be from the ethical purity & wisdom of Jesus. However, I will never give up the fight to be more like Him and to draw closer in relationship to Him. It is not just something beneficial for my family, to those I engage with directly, and to the world for me to do so. It is to my own benefit to do so, despite the volume of occasions every day where I lose sight of that reality due to lack of effective consistent mental clarity on the subject & otherwise. The quest for Truth, peace, meaning, freedom, hope, Love, God, etc. (interwoven with the grace of God in these and many other capacities & my relationship to Him) compels me, despite my failures and inadequacies, to seek it still. The closer that relationship, & the more mentally & actively in tune I am with Scripture, the easier it is for me to unselfishly love, to be self disciplined, to do good, to live effectively, to feel fulfilled in life, and to experience joy. When by grace in life the reality that I can write about here more fully converts to praxis, (and in so many other ways!) I am blessed beyond what I could ever hope to deserve!
 
In a world chasing after ephemeral things that will never satisfy (Ecclesiastes 2), the Love (Agape) of Jesus is so much more full of Life (1 John 4:8, John 10:10, John 14:6, Philippians 3:8)!

Nepal was the 6th poorest nation in the world at the time, where a common wage for working women was 200$/year. The kids in the Christian orphanage had 2 pairs of clothes each, which we are washing in the picture, and little else materially. They ate porridge in the mornings, and rice with sauce (a rather thin dall) at lunch and dinner. Their only meat source, a single chicken spread out throughout the whole orphanage once a month. It was so cold, that after the first night, I curled up next to the heater off the bed every other night; the kids didn’t have heat.

Despite the lack of physical resources, they possessed a joy and love in an abundance that I had never seen before. They were the happiest kids I had ever seen, loving each other, me, and everyone they encountered to a degree that had previously been exclusively theoretical for me. This could only be described as the joy of the Lord, something not manufactured by religion, but truly born of God. Of my first two decades of life, I can think of no week more important or joy filled than my week in a Nepali orphanage

Ecclesiastes 2:8-11 Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male singers and female singers, and the delights and pleasures of men—[a]many [b]concubines.

9 So I became great and excelled more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me. 10 Whatever my eyes looked at with desire I did not refuse them. I did not withhold from my heart any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor; and this was my reward for all my labor. 11 Then I considered all which my hands had done and labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and chasing after the wind and there was no profit (nothing of lasting value) under the sun.

Some may glance at this article and concur that I believe that money is inherently evil and that it’s morally wrong to be rich. That’s not true. For more details. see the sections on each subject at the bottom of this article.

Money doesn’t buy happiness. I am not a rich person, but I have experienced some luxury in my life, including the home I lived in below for around a decade with my family when not away for school, mission trips, ministry, etc.

Waterfront property surrounded by water on 4 sides with a landbridge as a driveway
My home in Yorktown, VA (when not at Wheaton College, in other countries for mission trips, & in the Wheaton/Chicago area) from 2004-2014. Don’t know me & find that hard to believe? Check the tax records for 122 Sandbox Ln in York County at https://maps.yorkcounty.gov/York/Account/Logon/ & my father at https://www.facebook.com/adambgarrett/directory_personal_details

The home above is where my parents lived when my mom left my dad. I was living with them at the time while studying full time for a Masters in Practical Theology at Regent University about an hour away.

Adam living in a homemade shelter built with raw materials for 3 nights. The only non-raw material was the trash bag used as a door. Adam learned to make these while acquiring the Wilderness Survival merit badge in Boy Scouts. The first night there was a storm, but he slept fine.
In the year after Adam graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Christian Education, he sought a sabbatical, which included an 8 week stent of being intentionally homeless while ministering to the homeless. While Adam wouldn’t recommend the experience for most despite not regretting it for himself, to get a better understanding of how Adam was uniquely well suited for that more than most, and God’s protection as well, see: https://adambgarrett2.blogspot.com/

I had more joy during 8 weeks of homelessness yet in the will of God than I did in much time where I wasn’t doing full time ministry at my parents’ home pictured near the top of this page.

Some may read the above and think that I believe that having money is inherently evil. That’s far from the case.

I did not focus on money much early in life. I didn’t even establish a retirement account until later in life. However, once I met my wife, I recognized the need to have some money to better provide for the hope of marriage & a future family. I do not regret my time being intentionally homeless within a year of graduating with my bachelor’s degree, but I do believe that money is more important to my life and to the impact that I can have on this world now than I believed then.

Some believe that it’s wrong to be rich. I don’t believe that. 

In the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, numerous people were rich, some of which the Bible says that God blessed to be rich. God wouldn’t bless someone to something that is inherently evil. Job 42 says, “

10 And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil[b] that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money[c] and a ring of gold.

12 And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.”

At the same time, some prophets of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible don’t have much more than the clothes on their back at times, so not having money doesn’t mean that one is cursed by God in itself. Psalm 1 states that walking with God according to His will is something that will tend to yield prosperity in that effort. I believe that, whether one is pursuing money or pursuing things with primarily other value.

In the New Testament, some are called to sell all their possessions, like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-30, also seen in Mark 10:17-31 & Luke 18:18-30. Others are not, like Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 who gives half of what he had to the poor & rights financial wrongs he has committed. In Acts 2:42-47, we see additional radical giving and extensive sharing of possessions. We also see where churches meet in a house that someone needs to own in Romans 16:5. We see Paul in his journeys staying at various homes of people like in Acts 18:2-3, 18:7 & 21:8. 

In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament:

Not following God can certainly lead to hardship. The book of Proverbs makes that very clear. However, as we see in Ecclesiastes, that’s not always how things work.

In the New Testament:

We see Paul at times going through tremendous suffering despite writing more books of the Bible than any other author. Jesus Himself was born in very humble circumstances where there was no guest room at the house, where he, Joseph & Mary stayed in a section of the house typically reserved for livestock (Luke 2:4-20). Jesus, though he lived a sinless life, was whipped, and later dies on the cross, the most cruel form of systemic death available in the penal code at the time.