Saying Eight

Proverbs 23:4-5

Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease! Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

Don’t break your back for a flighty buck.

Allow me to introduce you to two men: Grant Moore and Buck Grabber. Grant and Buck work side by side, for the same boss, at the same construction job, for the same forty hours per week, receiving the same paycheck every month. They even bring the same water bottles to work. Yet, when we peel away the camouflage exterior, we find two ways of thinking that could not be more different.

Buck comes to work with the goal of doing his job and seeing the day out, inching himself closer to his monthly pay. Grant, who is more simple-minded, comes to work with the goal of building a house. Whilst neither man could articulate the differences in their attitudes, there is nonetheless a sizable chasm between them, and it does not go unnoticed by the boss.

Over time, he assigns more responsibility to Grant, and begins to distrust Buck. Indeed, as the years roll by, we check back in to find that Grant’s paycheck has seen a thirty-percent increase, while Buck’s has barely kept up with inflation. So as not to fall financially behind his work mate, Buck starts his own business and works on weekends; and, although it takes a great toll on his family and his own health, he eventually far surpasses Grant’s wealth. To prove his success, he buys a three-million-dollar house with a five-percent deposit, and then proceeds to worry about his mortgage every night. Two years later, he dies of a heart attack.

Grant somberly attends the funeral in his 2010 Mitsubishi Pajero, and then heads home to his wife and children. Looking on the bright side, he remembers that Saturday is board game night, and, despite the loss of his friend, it would be difficult not to enjoy himself.

The major difference between these two men is the reason for which they worked. The late Buck Grabber worked for a paycheck; he ‘overworked to be rich.’ Grant Moore, on the other hand, worked to add value and create wealth. As a result of this attitude, he naturally accrued some money; but the fact that he did not aim for it allowed him to view it as a blessing from God.

Working for money, Buck-style, is like hoarding a dozen helium balloons under your arms, with the risk always being that you will let go and they’ll fly away ‘like an eagle toward heaven.’ Ironically, in aiming for the security of riches, men become all too aware of how tenuous their grasp on wealth really is, and anxiety overtakes them. Without the eternal security of the promises of God — which are gifted to Christians completely apart from work — there can be no peace in worldly possessions. With such assurance of salvation, the Christian learns to be content with, and indeed thankful for, whatever he has.

Saying Eight, therefore, may be taken not just as an injunction to stop trusting in riches, but to alter one’s whole attitude to work. It introduces a mindset change whereby even the most dependent employees seek to increase the amount of wealth in the world through their work, rather than merely drawing from an existing sum in their boss’s bank balance. It is a fundamentally pro-capitalist, anti-communist proverb.

Now, it is true that the attitude described can more readily be achieved in occupations which directly involve the creation of goods, rather than the delivery of services. But it is certainly attainable in both. A radiographer, for example, does not have such an obvious way of ‘creating wealth’ as, say, a farmer. But she is still doing so; it is just a few more steps removed. Whereas a farmer creates wealth by growing food that did not exist before, she takes the x-ray of the farmer who creates wealth by growing food that did not exist before. Any useful profession, therefore, is aimed at increasing the value of God’s world, no matter how indirectly.

Scriptures for Comparison

Ecclesiastes 5:10

Matthew 6:33

1 Timothy 6:7-8

Proverbs 16:3

Proverbs 11:28

Luke 12:15

Psalm 39:6

Proverbs 13:7

Proverbs 13:11

Ecclesiastes 5:15