The Requirement of Riches

Craig Groeschel with some wise counsel reprinted from the May/June 2011 issue of Relevant Magazine.

I am going to read your mind. Think: How much money would you need to feel you were “rich”? Envision a specific dollar amount. Whether your number is an annual income range or a fixed dollar figure, the number you came up with is … more than what you currently make or have. How did I know? Because you’re normal.

Gallup asked Americans what annual income they’d need to consider themselves rich. People who made $30,000 a year or less answered (on average) $74,000 a year. People who made around $50,000 a year said they’d need $100,000 a year to be rich. Virtually no one believed their existing annual income Perspective classified them as rich. It’s not surprising, really. Ecclesiastes 5:10 tells us, “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income” (NIV).

When normal people picture someone rich, they imagine a hedge fund tycoon, a successful entrepreneur or that average-looking person in high school they never dated who grew up, turned gorgeous and wrote a best-selling novel. It’s always someone else who’s rich, not you. Rich people rarely think they’re rich—because someone else, somewhere, has more.

Most of us place ourselves financially somewhere between a millionaire and a homeless person. But there’s a problem with this completely normal line of thinking. Normal people, even when we sincerely seek to follow God, often skim past the parts of the Bible directed at rich people, thinking, “Oh, that’s for somebody else.”

If you haven’t missed a meal in the last three weeks—because you couldn’t afford it, not because you were dieting—you’re rich. If your kids attend a school of your choosing—either because you pay for it or because you’ve chosen to live in a specific geographic area—you’re rich. Do you have a car? Only 3 to 5 percent of people in the world do, you know. Rich people. If you have a little house for your car (often called a “garage”), you’re rich. If you pay other people to prepare and serve you food—like, say, in a restaurant—you’re rich. While you may not feel rich, the fact is, you are, because you have rich-people opportunities.

Luke 12:48 says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” God has blessed you with enough—actually, with more than enough—because He is entrusting you with a great responsibility. But that responsibility comes with a wonderful promise: Proverbs 22:9 says, “The generous will themselves be blessed” (NKJV).

I know business leaders who have an eye for deals. I know good designers who have an eye for color. But cultivating a generous eye requires no innate gifts—only practice. What does the world start to look like when we begin to perceive it through generous eyes? When we focus on giving what we can, where we can, we begin seeing others the way God sees them: as people in need.

If we want blessings that last, we need to look beyond materialism. First John 2:15 and 17 tell us: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. … The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” What things do you desire? Financial experts say you can see where your passions are just by looking at your checking account history. Where you’re spending shows what things you truly care about.

So, we know what we should do. But how do we do it? Jesus answers in Luke 12:22-34, and in verse 34 specifically: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” But this principle can work in reverse, too. Where do you want your heart to go? Then start putting the things you value there—and your heart will follow.

As I hinted at earlier, the only way to cultivate generous eyes is to practice—to look for opportunities and then give in to them. I like to think of these as three levels of giving:

1. Spontaneous. When you see a need you can meet, do it.


2. Strategic. Plan your giving. Calculate ways your generosity can achieve maximum impact.


3. Sacrificial. Live like you’re managing not your own resources, but God’s. Give both spontaneously and strategically, but use only the minimum that you need and give the rest.


Practicing all three will not only draw you closer to God, but it will help you begin to see life from His eternal perspective. When people say, “I don’t have enough to give,” what they’re truly saying is they don’t feel they have enough extra to give without adjusting their lifestyle. It takes deliberate intention and time to develop generous eyes. God has blessed you so that you can be a blessing to others. It’s time to let God transform your intentions into actions.

I'm An Ungrateful Lout

A few years ago I was in Ecuador visiting homes of people caught in what economists and social workers call “the downward cycle of poverty.”  A nice little handle to put on such a sad scenario.  Over half the world’s population living on less than $2 a day. Families “living” in what would certainly be considered sub-standard conditions.  Sub-human is more like it. 

One family of eight sharing two flea infested, soiled queen size mattresses in mosquito swarmed wetlands along the steamy Pacific coast.  Employment is scarce, and opportunities are almost negligible in these cramped, wreaking barrios full of those who have moved from the countryside in hopes that the big city would deliver both. No running water.  No sewer systems. Dangerous and unpredictable electrical service.  Out of this hopelessness even deeper wounds become manifest: Gangs, the underworld, gambling, prostitution, drug dealing, alcoholism, various STD’s including a dramatic increase in AIDS. And everywhere, a veritable legion of mangy, rabid dogs at nearly every turn shaking and snarling through foamy teeth.

As a well-to-do American, it is a slap in the face.  The most profound reality check that any of us could be confronted with.  I have been around the stench of poverty in my work for over twenty years on four continents.  I’ve seen more than my share of horrific conditions. I’m certainly familiar with it—but I can’t say I ever get used to it. I pray that I never do.

But more profound than the suffering and the overwhelming sense that this debilitating hopelessness continues onward and downward for these people every single day is this paradox: How grateful they are for the good they do have in their lives.  How many lovely, sincere smiles did I see?  How many peels of laughter did I hear?  How many warm embraces, kind greetings, and humble compliments did I receive?  I listened to heartfelt, honest, and truly thank-full prayers of mothers for God’s blessings in their lives. I saw children full of energy and dreams for what could be, despite what appeared to be smothering nightmares.

Flash forward a few days, and I am on my way home to Nashville.  Upon reaching Atlanta at 7 PM for my final connection to Nashville, I discover there will be a two hour delay.  I’ve been up since three that morning and am weary from the hectic week.  I find myself muttering curses under my breath for the inept airlines, the weather system that passed through five hours before that caused all the delays, and the long lines for fast  food.  Then it dawns on me that less than a hundred years ago, it would’ve taken literally months to make the trip via boat all the way around Cape Horn (before the Panama Canal was built), as well as by steam train and wagon once on dry land.  Of course, the people I had just spent the previous week with would’ve gladly “endured” my inconvenience for the chance to simply visit America, let alone return to a splendid, air conditioned house.  They certainly would’ve happily stood in line for an hour just to have a fraction of what I ate on my chinese plate.

Once home, and nestled in my cool waterbed, I was awakened at 2 AM with that ominous feeling in my lower intestine.  Having traveled over the decades, I immediately knew what is in store for several days ahead with “Montezuma’s Revenge.”  This turns out to be a particularly bad batch, including vomiting as well as the traditional “runs.”  I’m up every ten to fifteen minutes making a mad dash to the toilet.  Sometimes I opt to just sit there for long stretches since it seems nearly pointless to go lie down again.  Wave after wave of fluid flushes out of my system.  This continues for seven hours. I ache.  I’m bone tired. I finally nap a bit later on Saturday, but, to my dismay, the cycle begins again later that night, and I have a second sleepless evening in a row with dozens of commode performances.  All told, I lose eight pounds in thirty-six hours.  In the midst of my weary regret over what the hell I could’ve possibly ingested that caused this woe, I am reminded that at least a billion people on this planet live with chronic dysentery for their ENTIRE lives.  This is “normal” for them. I can’t possibly imagine how anyone can function in this way. 

Once recovered, I realize my lawn needs cutting.  I fight through the thick Nashville air, sopped in sweat, battling sneezes and drooling due to allergies (how on earth can any more fluid possibly be coming out of this body?!),  and swatting away aphids, gnats, flies, and wasps in the warm mid-day sun.  As I’m putting my Murray mower back in its storage, I realize that the foundation, siding, and roof of this tool shed is better than what most of the families I visited a few days prior lived in.  And the idea of having green grass, let alone a yard would’ve been completely surreal to them and their children.

While I am regaining some strength after my illness, I decide to go over to a friends house to watch a DVD.  When we are done with our visit, as I start my car, there is a massive “bang” and smoke starts pouring out from under the hood followed by gritty screeches.  My AC compressor died a violent death at that moment.  I waited three hours for an AAA service truck.  The mechanic jerry-rigged a way for me to continue driving for the remainder of the 4^th of July weekend until I could get it into a shop.  We forget the days before prevalent AC in cars, when we used the tried-and-true “4-50 air cooling system” (four windows down at fifty mph).  With temps in the mid-nineties and typical mid-south humidity, any trip in my car for the next few days seemed to compress any further potential stomach problems. It took $1,330 to fix the AC.  That is twice what some of the families I had just met in South America earned for an entire year.  And none of them had ever even sat in an air conditioned car before, let alone had that luxury in their home.  Heck, I didn’t meet one person who even owned a car, and most were lucky to scrape together rent to “live” in the shacks they were in.

It is amazing how God can show us things so clearly in one moment, and then literally a few days later, we can be blinded by our own day-to-day rituals and sense of entitlement.  At my core, I, like most human beings, am a very selfish lout.  I take so much for granted. I am impatient.  I am too quick to blame. I complain and whine too much (if not verbally, then certainly in my spirit).  Bottom line, I am ungrateful. 

May I continue to be reminded, taught, and even disciplined into realizing how very blessed I am.  And in return, may I be all the more gracious, giving, kind, and understanding of those who are not as fortunate as me.