I am sure you all remember this quote the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Many attribute the quote to Jesus, when in Matthew 13:12 he said, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more
abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even
that he hath.” Whether you think Jesus had anything to do with the rich getting richer or not, the quote is still important.
Today the quote is usually used in a negative sense, as in “that rich idiot is getting richer! and I still have this huge pile of bills!” Or it could be used to describe the people with material wealth as evil, while the poor who are getting poorer are victims of this evil. But in the back of your mind you might be wondering how you can apply this saying in your own life. Maybe? Ok, not you, but a friend of yours wants to know…
Or you may think this quote does not apply to you. You say “But Brad I’m not rich. I don’t have that much money.” hmmm..lets take a closer look.
Riches can mean more than money. You can have a life rich in culture, a life rich in happiness or a life rich in love. But you’re probably still interested in the money, eh? Ok, I’m getting to that.
What the rich gets richer means in 2006 terms is take whatever you have and leverage it for more. If you have 1 apple, you may not be rich in apples, but if you pull some seeds from the apple and plant them, you can have the start of an apple orchard. You’ll be rich and apples.
I can almost hear the mass of people groaning “Who cares about apples? I want money!”
Fine!
It’s the same with money. One dollar may not be a lot of money, but if you use that dollar in a creative way, someone will pay you 2 dollars for it.
I remember in elementary school enterprising kids did this all the time. They’d take 50 cents and buy a pack of Bubblicious bubble gum and then come back to school and sell pieces out of the pack for 25 cents a piece. That would effectively double their money and leave enough for them to enjoy a piece of bubble gum too. By the way, orange is the best Bubbalicious flavor.
So the question is, what are your riches? Do you have some savings? Some property? A paycheck at least? Do you have riches in a latent skill you can trade for wealth? Whatever you do have, recognize it today and get to work leveraging it.
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{ 1 comment }
Brad,
Great post. My particular ‘blindness to my riches’ concerns how much of my knowledge and experience is valuable to other people. I find it easy to think that what seems ‘obvious’ to me is obvious to everyone. But then I’ll give some advice to a friend or speak up in a meeting and realize that something I said was completely hidden to the people I was speaking too. In that is the value I can offer to others.
I’ve always connected the Matthew 13:12 passage with the parable of the talents. The multiplication of abundance is connected to what you DO with what you have and the primary difference between those that ‘have’ and those that ‘have not’ is their perception of what they have been given (life) and what they do with it.
Thanks for the inspiring post!