Money, Possessions, and Eternity– by Randy Alcorn
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I hate it when I pick up a book that I think I’m reading for pure edification and end up coming away with a lot to think about and highly convicted. I had read parts of this book in high school, I remembered it being thought provoking and it had been on my reading list for a while.
Randy hits a lot of different points in this book; all of them good, and most not talked about nearly enough in the Christian community. He covers all the things; how money is talked about more than nearly any other topic in the Bible, how our thinking about money in today’s day and age is flawed, often even in our churches, the Bible’s views on debt, and how we should use our money to help others.
I would hesitate to describe myself as materialistic. I certainly don’t want to think that money is one of the most important things to me. But I do place a lot of feelings of security in money. Money is a buffer between me and the unexpected large medical bill. Money is the freedom to do things- anything. And money secures a roof over my head, and that in turn brings me feelings of safety and comfort. Towards the end of the book Randy makes a statement about money that I found terribly convicting. He said that in our American culture we are taught to save, to build a safety net with our money, and once a lot of us start with this we keep going. He says that while that is wise, where is the point that we stop relying on God to provide for our needs, and instead rely on our safety net that we have built. I know this is something I have done, and while I do still think that it is wise that we have an emergency fund, I also think that we really do need to ponder and pray over where our security lies.
An Overarching point that Randy makes throughout the book is that there is soo much need in this world. And largely as Americans, even those living in what we call poverty, we have so much. Did God bless us with all this just for us to stay very comfortable? Randy makes the case that perhaps we have been blessed largely so that we can bless others just as much. He states several times that he believes that we should pick a certain amount of money to live on, it needn’t be super small but neither should it be a lavish amount, but rather somewhere in between, and then commit to live at that amount from then on. We should still work to maximize our incomes and make as much money as we have the skill to do so, but all money over that set amount should go to charities, non profits, and our churches. Randy uses his own life as an example and it is amazing to see how God has blessed and provided. I don’t know how I feel about this. I can certainly appreciate Randy’s view, but it does seem a little extreme. However much of Christianity has been seen as extreme throughout the history of the Church and I therefore believe that we should deeply ponder what our relationship is with money, and how it is impacting our relationship with God.
I think this is valuable reading for any Christian definitely, but also for anyone who wants to take a challenging look at their relationship with money. Do we have a healthy perspective on money and material things? How much time do we spend thinking about money and the things and own and want to own versus other much more important things- like Eternity? At the end of our lives are we going to wish that we had held onto more of our money, or that we had used it to bless others and bring glory to God every time we had the chance?