The folly of clawing at riches

Occasionally, when I teach a lesson from the Bible, one of the participants will proclaim, “I needed to hear and study this material five years ago.” And isn’t this the case with all of us at times? How often do we come across a piece of information, a book, a verse or passage Scripture, or a principle that has that effect on us? 

Often, it is something that we have read many times, as if God has always wanted to teach us if we would have simply taken the time to truly consider the principle before us. We can then immediately go back in our minds to a time when that information would have helped us avoid a lot of mistakes and pain. 

I had one of those moments the first time I really paid attention to this next piece of advice that Solomon is giving us: “Stop wearing yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to end your pursuit. In the blink of an eye wealth vanishes as if it sprouts wings and flies away like an eagle.”

In 1987 I was on a quest to get rich. I was young, foolish, and had started investing in the commodities market. With my first few trades I was making a killing over the course of a few months. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I took an initial investment of $3,000 and turned it into almost $40,000 in about four weeks. All I could think about was how wealthy I was going to be. 

To a certain extent, I was indeed wearing myself out trying to get rich. And since I had already fulfilled the first part of this Proverb, I was definitely not wise enough to know when to end my pursuit. And you guessed it, in the blink of an eye my newfound wealth disappeared as if it had wings and flew away. I lost almost everything that I had gained in a single day.

What are some lessons to be learned from what Solomon wrote and in how I violated these principles as they were fulfilled in my life?

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