Hey, which do you think is the largest man made monument in the USA? Is it the Gateway Arch; Statue of Liberty; Washington Monument; Or the Cloud Gate? Which is your guess?

Tuesday 3/7

Prov. 28:22 "Greedy people try to get rich quick but don't realize they're headed for poverty."

People who are greedy are focused on their own prosperity at other peoples loss. Several other translations describe the greedy person as a person with an evil eye, or a miser. Solomon warns us of major ways that others are harmed from greed in Prov. 21:5-7 speaking of it as ill-gotten gain and then he lays out how a person may look at the wrong ways of the acquiring of money, being: 1) focused on haste, 2) or deceitful in their endeavors, 3) or is not afraid to achieve financial gain through violence.

Jesus while here on earth spoke to this issue in Matt. 6:22,23 and compared the single focus of those people who are compassionate; over others who are selfish. The inference in both of these passages is the reference that those whose focus becomes the gain of wealth takes them away from thinking about helping others, or even worse making a fortune at the cost of living with no compassion for others.

Both Solomon & Jesus were warning us that the greatest good that we can provide for our world is love & compassion. One of Solomon's greatest sorrows was that by gaining great wealth you actually were amassing it, and leaving it behind at the mercy of your next generation. Then he came to realize that the greatest inheritance he could leave was the value of caring & loving others and demonstrating that love by being loving & compassionate. However, he found that to place too great an emphasis on the acquiring of money, leaves a person poor in the very quality that they have by an overemphasis on, what's left behind (loveless & uncompassionate children).

Present day evidence is strewn all around by this maxim. The woman with billions of dollars in the bank who died of malnutrition. The man who refused to attend his grandchildren's birthday parties because he didn't feel they appreciated his gifts. The boy who when invited to birthday parties refused to attend because he couldn't afford to buy a present, when he had a million dollar trust account. These and many more instances are prevalent in todays news.

This is all to not say don't spend everything you make, but rather don't place too great an attention on amassing money to the point that we fail to focus any thoughts on charity for those about us. Great is the poverty of someone who has more money in savings than they could ever possibly spend, and no expressions of love & compassions to others who they love.

Mr. & Mrs. Hershey owners of Hershey's candy bars were unable to have children, so early in their lives they opened an orphanage for children who had no family. There in Hershey, Penn. stands a home, and school for children; employing a staff of adults who had no family themselves when children, who are as adults attending to children with no family. Mrs. Hershey spent most of her days, playing, reading books, filling her daytime hours being with & around children, striving to assure they experienced love in their lives.

They both were focused on their mission of giving family to unowned children. Notice the wrappers on their candy bars are the same color & design since their beginning production. You ask why? In order to direct as much of their profits back into the loving, and caring they could put into their many children's lives. What an example of placing all that; two people could give back into needy childrens lives, who had no hope of selfish gain.

So Go With God and He will guide you into investing love & compassion for others in a way that will have eternal benefit. He loves those who take interest in passing on His love to others in their life. We live in a very myopic (what's in it for me) world, we must remain cautious that we don't fall into that sort of thinking ourselves. It is so easy isn't it?

I think it is especially easy to fall into that sort of pattern as we grow older. I know my father spoke of that in his parents, and grandparents. In fact, as he was becoming affected by his memory loss, he joked that he wouldn't need to be worried with that concern, because he couldn't even be aware of it. One of my greatest sorrows was that one of my best friends in life, my father, lost all memory that I was his friend/son. He began to see me as my brothers friend. For the fact that he had another friend in my brother was one of my greatest comforts.