No products in the basket.
One of my favourite stage plays is A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. As the play unfolds, we follow Walter Lee Younger (35), our protagonist, as he is driven to the verge of insanity by the pursuit of a dream that he himself cannot put into words. He has only a vague idea of what achieving it might look like—joyrides in a nice car, long aimless walks, listening to good jazz music all day in a local bar—and he has a strong conviction that financial prosperity is the only way he will see it realized.
At one particularly revealing moment in the play, his mother asks him:
MAMA: Son—how come you talk so much ’bout money?
WALTER: (With immense passion) Because it is life, Mama!
MAMA: (Quietly) Oh—(very quietly) so now it’s life. Money is life. Once upon a time, freedom used to be life—now it’s money. I guess the world really do change …
WALTER: No—it was always money, Mama. We just didn’t know about it.
Admittedly, this is a shocking admission by Walter. Jarring admissions like these may make it hard for us to relate to him as someone whose struggles we share. But the truth is, we are more like him than we care to admit.
Many Christians are well aware of the sharp scriptural warnings against the love of money: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10). “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19a). “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Many of us make efforts to take these warnings seriously, reminding ourselves and others of them when need be.
However, I am afraid that, while our efforts have been sufficient to keep us from an unashamed love of money, or from bold proclamations like “money is life,” they have not kept us from the deep-seated dependence on it—a quiet conviction that all I need in life—“in addition to Christ and the church, of course,” we’ll often add—is more money.
Though we may not go so far as to say that “money is life,” many of us, like Walter, carry specific ideas about how our lives should be: a well-paying job, a nice house in a good neighbourhood, a loving family whose needs we can meet without difficulty, the financial freedom to enjoy life’s pleasures and go on vacation without worrying about the cost. This, we insist—not necessarily in what we say, but in how we live and think—is life.
So much so, in fact, that we don’t count the life we live before these things are achieved as much of a life at all. The common cultural phrase “life begins after … (graduation, marriage, forty, retirement, etc.)” isn’t pulled from thin air. It points to this idea we carry quietly in our hearts—a better life in waiting. And, like Walter, a part of us is convinced that this better life in waiting is achieved through financial security.
This way of thinking is dangerous. It has caused much discontent among believers. More than just keeping ourselves from the love of money or what money can buy, Christians are called to godly contentment. As believers, we would save ourselves from much heartache, frustration, and even disbelief by renewing our minds in these matters. Paul writes, “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10). Likewise, Jesus, in Matthew 13:22, speaks of those who hear the word but whose fruitfulness is choked by “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.” Often, our faith struggles because our preoccupation with what we think we should have overshadows our gratitude for God’s faithfulness in providing what we already have.
Contentment is not easy, and I don’t want to make it sound as if it is. It’s hard. But from my own experience, and that of others (and from the wisdom of great writers like Hansberry), I have found that a life of discontentment—marked by the constant pursuit of more money, more comfort, or this vague idea of “a better life in waiting” attained by financial security—is much harder.
Christ, in calling us to a life of godly contentment, is calling us to find our rest in him. Rest only becomes hard for us because we refuse to do it. Our sinfulness makes us self-reliant; our fallenness makes us refuse to depend on him. We would rather wander restlessly in pursuit of earthly lifelines like money and possessions than lay our burdens on Him.
“Do not be anxious,” says Jesus, “saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” If Jesus were merely a man, we would have the whole history of lying men to justify not believing his words. But he is no mere man. He is the Son of God, sent by the Father to speak only that which the Father approves. And therefore, in his words, the Father speaks directly to us—reminding us not to be anxious about our lives; assuring us that life is more than food and the body more than clothing; that he feeds the birds of the air and dresses the lilies of the field; that we are more valuable than they; that he knows all our needs; and that money is never enough, for there is no comfort under the sun apart from him. He alone is sufficient to sustain our lives. He is our life.
The question is: Will we believe him—will we depend only on him? Whose pattern of life will we follow? Walter’s, who represents the life of the flesh in his proclamation that money is life, or Christ’s, who is “the way, the truth, and the life”?
© Copyright . Imprint, Leaving a healthy mark on the church in Africa