Whenever a conversation about money, investment or financial freedom begins, I feel the urge to set the timer on my mobile phone… and see how long it takes before the first Christian in the room says, ‘Yes, but life is not all about money.’
I actually agree with them. I just don’t feel the need to point it out at every opportunity.
Actually, it’s all about time. Time is the finite commodity in life. There are only so many hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year. We have only a few short years when our children, or grandchildren, are growing up and desperately need our time and attention – the time in which we can influence their life’s course.
There are only a finite number of years during which we have the physical and mental capacity to perform our chosen vocation, after which, our bodies will begin to slow down and physically weaken. Travel will become more difficult, our independence will diminish, and our world will begin to shrink.
There are only a finite number of years during which we can share God’s love and the good news of the gospel with others; a time when we can make a mark in this world and, God willing, leave it a little better than we found it.
And every minute wasted is a minute lost. We can never get it back.
So, I ask; why would we choose to chain ourselves to a desk and the accompanying commute to-and-fro for ten to sixteen hours of our waking day for the best forty years of our lives? All in pursuit of money!
Counter-Intuitive Values
I find it strange that so many Christians who spend all their time trying to earn money consider the act of understanding finance and investing money for passive income (to buy back time) the love of money.
Surely the opposite is true.
It is this blinkered thinking that keeps us locked in financial bondage when freedom is just one change of perspective away.
Money, investment, or wealth creation comes up in the conversation and our Love of Money alarm bell sounds. We feel the burning urge to say, ‘Yes, but there is more to life than the almighty dollar. It’s not all about money.’ We do this without even considering the possibility that we, personally, are struggling with that very issue. This is the devil’s greatest trick.
Time is Money
There is a saying that time is money. In one sense it is. In another, time is infinitely more valuable. Rather than focusing all our effort on acquiring money, we should be looking for ways to put our money to work so that we can have more time to:
- Spread the gospel
- See the people we love and
- Share God’s love with others
To me, this is true wealth. In that sense, time is money.
The idea of measuring wealth in terms of time takes love of money out of the equation. The idea is simple. Ask yourself this question. If you lost your job today and your income dried up, how long can you survive before you run out of money and begin to starve? Let’s assume you have investments that earn you $500 per month and expenses of $2000 per month. That means you could last roughly one week before you run out of money.
Now, if you could increase your monthly investment income to $1000, you double the amount of time you can last from one week to two weeks. You have increased your ‘wealth’ by a factor of one week.
What would happen if, instead, you were able to halve your expenses from $2000 to $1000? It is worth noting that expense reduction is far easier to achieve than increased income.
This might mean a smaller house, a smaller car and cheaper vacations but the net result is the same. You will have increased your survival time by a factor of one week and thus doubled your true wealth without increasing your income at all.
See how we can achieve wealth simply by reducing our monthly expenses?
It sounds easy but it’s not. It requires godliness with contentment. To achieve this, we need to break Mammon’s (love of money’s) hold on our lives.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.
1 Timothy 6:6-8
I realise the numbers I used are a little simplistic and the chances that the average family could halve their expenses overnight is unrealistic. I merely write it to illustrate the point. Every dollar saved in the expenses column is a step towards true wealth and away from the love of money.