Wisdom Challenge: Day 23
Do not overwork to be rich;
Proverbs 23:4-5
Because of your own understanding, cease!
Will you set your eyes on that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings;
They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
We live in a hustle culture today.
So many people are out chasing the New American Dream— but instead of a white picket fence and a dog, it’s a million followers on social media and $10,000+/month of passive income.
These things aren’t inherently bad, but pursuing them can cause the pursuer to lose sleep at night. There’s no peace in pursuing material things.
Despite this, it’s so easy for many of us to fall into the comparison trap, especially on social media. We see that 20-year-old multi-billionaire who lives on a private island and meets regularly with the King of Saudi Arabia; we compare ourselves to that and we think that we’re not doing enough.
To make matters worse, we then consume all his YouTube videos where he tells us how to be successful entrepreneurs despite having gained his riches by randomly going viral on a TikTok challenge.
This is an oddly specific example but I’ve seen things like this all over the web. It got to the point that I was experiencing burnout because I couldn’t take a break from working without feeling guilty (except on Sabbaths of course).
Riches are not as secure as our culture makes them out to be. They go just as easily and quickly as they come. Life is full of examples of people who’ve amassed large amounts of wealth and lost it overnight. In many cases they even ended up worse off than they started.
The only stable thing in this world are the unseen principles that govern it. Wisdom is the principle thing– if you seek it diligently and gain it, you gain all things in essence.
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