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Well, for one, you can't pay your bills and buy groceries with peace and happiness. But money also can't buy peace and happiness, like if your marriage is on the rocks and you try to mend it by getting on an expensive cruise or a vacation with your wife and hope it'd turn out romantic but it doesn't.
But it seems easier to be happy and peaceful with money than without money. Most married couples I know fight about money, so having money, I guess, would reduce problems in half, at least. Unless, if you and your wife have started out poor at the very beginning and got used to it all your lives (and have developed some kind of immunity). Then, money wouldn't matter much.
I and my wife have been enjoying a happy marriage and family. But most times we're rocked by lack of money. It's been difficult because we didn't start out poor. We both come from families that could afford comfy living. And then this.
Well, we're not living in poverty--I and my wife earn some income--but we always run short. Always. We have to borrow or make pay advances to catch up with bills and our kids' tuition fees. We love the Lord and treasure his Word and serve Him. But we have yet to experience how "The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing," and "he makes me lie down in green pastures," [Psalm 23], and "whatever he does (or I do) prospers," [Psalm 1].
And I tell Him, "Lord, thanks for a blessed marriage and family and for revealing your Word richly to us, but nonetheless, we need money to pay our bills with." You can't go to the grocery store and get items and then pay the cashier with your peace and happiness.
That's reality while you're on this planet.
I used to be bothered by it, but not anymore. I know a little bit more about lack and plenty now that the Lord is teaching me about them in His Word. I just have to look at how Christ lived and what happened to Job to see that those preachers are liars.
And look who ended up in hell later--the Rich Man or Lazarus? I can imagine how everybody thought Lazarus was in dire poverty because God wasn't pleased with him, and the rich man was rich because God liked him a lot. It ended with God putting Lazarus, the poor, poor guy, in Abraham's bosom. Lazarus, after all, had been favored by God even if he had lived a very poor life all his life.
God can bless you with riches even if he hates you. See?
But still, you can't pay your bills with your knowledge.
How I wish I could fish money from the mouth of fish I catch from a lake, but I don't know how to fish and I don't live anywhere near a lake. At least, Peter was an expert fisherman and lived close to a lake. But the Lord can do something like that for me--he could make me blog my way to lots of money and also prosper my self-improvement ebooks.
I've been praying for that....Nothing....yet..
At this point in my spiritual life, I can say with all honesty, I don't crave for riches. I don't envy the rich and I hate luxurious lifestyles. I'm not impressed by them one bit. But I have lots of bills I must pay for and my ministry dreams, which God placed in my heart, can only materialize after lots of expenses.
Money isn't everything--but it's everything.
