When is it too much?  When does enjoying the financial success go too far?  When does sharing it go too far?  When is enough to enough?  When is it ok to want more?  And at what point does money fracture relationships?

I am blessed with living in the tension of too much and not enough.  We foster children.  The poverty stricken children.  We advocate for the parents to have resources to support their own children and themselves.  We advocate for the kids so that they can grow up with basic necessities. And yet WE are financially blessed.  Gregg works hard and makes a fabulous income.  My parents are ‘reaping the fruit of their labors’ and sharing the wealth. We have been given much.  We are white, healthy, live in a safe country, believe in a loving God, are educated and are technically wealthy.

And yet, WE want more.  We want the debt to be paid off so that we can incur more debt. We want a better car, an upgrade to the house, a better house, a more extravagant vacation. When is it enough?  Where is the balance and are we being responsible with what we have been given?

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. – luke 12:48

I live in that tension.  I want to go on the extravagant vacations.  I want to renovate the house and yet I want to help people in poverty and I want to teach my children that there is more out there than getting every ‘thing’ they want when they want it.  Where is the balance?  When does the tension turn to harmony?

One of my favorite things to do is give gifts.  I love gifting friends and family.  Gifting our children is the absolute best.  But when do the blessings (gifts) become harmful to their well being?  How do we balance the wants, the gifts and the responsibilities?  When is it too much?

And then I am reminded that I am focusing on the money and not the relationships.  Money is a tool to enhance life.  It is a tool to survive in the US.  But it is not needed to build relationships.  And really relationships are what life is about.  And how do we build relationships?  We develop them over time, in the mundane, in daily life.

Daily interactions might seem inconsequential – ORDINARY COMMON – yet they are perhaps among the most critical and influential PLACE in personal development and relational capacitiies. = PROSAIC

Money will not build relationships.  Money will allow us to focus on other aspects of life.  Money will allow us to travel and see different parts of the world.  Money will let us celebrate our relationships in a different way.  But if we want to continue to grow and develop our relationships, money is not necessarily needed.  Time is needed.

Relationships are built in the every day.  In the kitchen, in working together towards a common goal, in the happy and the sad, in the challenges.  So maybe that’s the answer.  Maybe the balance is remembering to intentionally focus on doing and teaching the ordinary common, in order to invest in the capacity of the relationships.

 

So maybe the occasional extravagant vacation is ok but to make it the only investment into the relationship is not adequate.  We need to live in the prosaic to teach, to grow and to strengthen our relationships.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6