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Key Bible Verse: It is better to have little with fear for the Lord than to have great treasure with turmoil (Proverbs 15:16). Bonus Reading: Habakkuk 2:4-5

Contentment is essential in relating to money. The poor envy the rich while the rich envy the richer. Money gives a thrill but fills no void. The rich soon sense this and are perhaps surprised by it but then go back to making more money. Satisfaction will come later, they speculate, and at least there's the thrill.

Money does seem to meet our needs short term. It buys us food, shelter, vehicles, and experiences. But it doesn't meet any of our long-term needs: love, truth, relationships, redemption. This short-term deception is a tricky obstacle for us to understand and is one of the reasons God spent so much time instructing us concerning money and wealth. Money is deceitful, we're told. It is not a sin to be wealthy, but it is hazardous.

According to an ABC News study, people who win a multimillion-dollar lottery are more likely to be miserable one year later than a person who was in an accident and became a paraplegic. The lottery winner thinks the money will solve all his problems and that he'll live happily ever after—and, of course, it does not happen. With the paraplegic, every slight step forward gives him hope that life is going to get better.

—Richard Swenson in A Minute of Margin

My Response: How can I work toward a stress-reducing level of contentment?

Thought to Apply: True contentment is the power of getting out of any situation all there is in it.—G.K. CHESTERTON (British journalist)

Adapted from A Minute of Margin (NavPress, 2003) by permission.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Lord, keep me from accumulating things just to fill a void in my life that only You can fill.

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