More on Money

I recently wrote a blog entitled of time and money. 

We have found that living in this world there are always forces to try and pull us away from the usual necessary and fundamental basics of living.
Money plays an important role in the lives of so many people, but we have found that the times in our life that we were happiest and remember the most were the times when we were not well healed but when we were struggling.

In the main, affluence is the enemy of spirituality. Not that it needs to be, but because people don't keep the basic principles of the Gospel in perspective. Money seems to cloud our perspective and become an object instead of a means.  

I suppose that The Lord wants us to use the wealth for the up building of the kingdom of God. 

The Germans have a saying , das Sterbehemd hat keine Taschen. This means that the burial shroud does not have any pockets. We need to be aware that money is only part of this mortal existence. The true Saint is or should be more interested in the life after this one than the transitory things of this life. It is Satan's desire that we focus our attention on the goods of this world and tries to obliterate our celestial view. His "golden" question is,” Have you any money?" 

Each of you have more in the way of worldly goods and affluence than your great grandparents ever dreamed of, but because you have never known anything different you cannot appreciate what their circumstances were and not realize that your supposed poverty is in reality their affluence.

I read recently a statement by Brigham Young where he documented eating thistle because it was plentiful and he considered it filling. We would not even think of doing that now. The closest thing that we eat is a member of the thistle family called the artichoke. At one dollar a piece most people would think that was out of their price range. 

There is a statement by Christ that we should keep in mind when addressing this issue, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added unto."
If we keep in mind the real reason we are here on this earth, we will be able to keep things into perspective and not let money or the pursuit of wealth cloud our vision and distract us from the really important things in life.  We need to focus on family, others and making sure we do not do anything to cause hurt to ourselves or others.

Focus on what is really important. 

Love,
Grandpa