Are We Rich, Daddy?

By Eric Vogen

“Are we rich, Daddy?” asked my 6-year-old son, out of the blue one day as we were on a flight.

I looked at him and thought, "Wow, what a teachable moment!" I had counseled thousands of people in my career but now here it was, a chance to teach my son on one of my favorite topics. With my fully attentive, captive audience of one, I began with some basic concepts of wealth and then smoothly transitioned into a deeper understanding of being rich.

“Relative to the many people in the world who have very little money or possessions, we are rich.” I began. “For example, if you had one hundred dollars and everyone else had one million, you might feel poor. But if you also had an abundance of food and water and everyone else had nothing, you could feel like the richest by far. So, one part of defining richness is adding up wealth, relative to what others have. Another part is about identifying what is valued at a specific time."

Seeing my son understand what I was saying, I continued. "But be careful with 'relative' thinking with richness because it can lead to some frustrating paths. You can become angry about someone having more than you, or you can become filled with fear about losing, or you can become obsessive about wanting something of someone else’s when it’s not meant for you. The Bible says that these paths can become sins since they can lead to bad things very quickly. Instead of this, Jesus’ words and his example call us to joyfully lift up others even if they have more than we do, to walk in bold faith and not in fear, and to live in peace and to rejoice for others’ successes. Following Jesus with money is different than the typical way of the world. Jesus leads us to a type of enduring richness that is more about what is in your heart and spirit related to what you choose to be valuable. We can be rich in hope, having a patient expectancy that we will soon see new opportunities. We can be rich in faith that through Christ you can do all things through Him who strengthens you. We can also be rich in self-control through following God’s word and the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit. These things, and many others, lead to richness all the time. Will all of this make you worldly rich? Sometimes, it just might. One secret is that by living this way each day you may be inspired to create new services and things to help meet someone’s most pressing and challenging need. This is called creating value. It can also lead to unlocking wealth for those you are serving and then in return sometimes wealth comes back to you. This is also called abundant thinking.”

He continued to listen attentively as I went in for my punchline.

“Our family goal is to be rich in stewardship of all which is given to us by God. And we attempt to quantify this by asking the following questions when making money decisions:

In this decision, are we honoring God and following Jesus’ example?
Have we counted all the costs? And is it a good value and worth the time and risk?
Is there a good probability that this will produce growth and spark good things?

Will this action lead us to grow more or less fruit? (Such as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? As it says in the Bible, you can strive to be as rich as you want to for these things.)

Are we in agreement?”

I rested my case and my son thought about all of this for a few seconds and responded.

“So…is that a YES or a NO?”

We burst out laughing and I said, “YES!”

There are two things I love about my son’s original question. One is that this was the first time that I’d heard him decide to think of our family as a “we” and think in terms of sharing something together. And I also loved that I saw something in his eye that made me think that he made a decision to be truly rich—to choose to think with hope, abundance, and generosity. These are two decisions that anyone, young and old, can make which can have a profound impact on your financial path and its trajectory.

Each year, many people set clear personal goals for their net worth, income and expenses, growth, and giving. This is valuable and important work. And if you expand your goals to include those communities you would like to grow, it leads to greater opportunities. This could mean your family, company, client relationships, neighborhood, ministry places, or country. When you define your “we,” it begins to create an enduring richness which cannot be taken away and good works which may have eternal ripple effects. Each night, while planning out your next day, reflect upon your “we” groups and see if you wake up the next morning with a greater drive and expectancy for a richly textured life—no coffee required!

One person who set an example of living a rich life (and loved coffee) was my mother-in-law, Jean. She recently passed away. We had a wonderful 26-year relationship. She lived one of the richest lives of anyone I’ve ever known; her richness came from relentlessly pursuing to love others each day, even though she struggled with physical pain much of her life. With her little brother tragically dying when she was young, she learned from an early age to value life to its fullness every day. She saw each day as a gift to be cherished. She seemed to have no striving in her heart—for it to be a perfect day, or to get ahead, or to be rich. But yet, this is exactly what happened, even though she couldn’t control many things in her life. Her health issues limited her ability to get around. But instead of getting discouraged about these things, Jean constantly sowed into other people’s lives with the things she could control—her heart for merciful healing, compassionate teaching, encouraging writing, and joyful creativity.

So, how about you? Are you rich? And as my son said to me, “So…is that a YES or a NO?”

I’d love to hear your answer to my son’s question. Feel free to send me an email and share ways to be truly rich that you are desiring and discovering.