45 DAYS OF WISDOM - DAY 44 "HOW WEALTH EXPOSES MOTIVES" PROVERBS 19:4
SALT WATER
Probably the best day I have seen in Palmarcito. Bobby kept working while I surfed and he pretty much almost punched me in the face the following morning for doing so! Haha
CLEAN WATER
Sompopo on the best wave of the day showing us how it’s done
LIVING WATER
Sompopo teaches kids in the community how to surf for free every Saturday morning in front of his house. He is truly the man of peace in his village
HOW WEALTH EXPOSES MOTIVES - PROVERBS 19:4
Dr. Ryan here. I want to talk to you today about how wealth exposes people's motives. This is our 249th episode. Thank you for joining me.
Proverbs 19.4 says, "'Wealth attracts many friends, "'but even the closest friend "'of the poor person deserts them.'"
There's a lot going on here. Wealth, we're talking about money and assets. They attract, now this word is interesting. It means gather together. So you're gonna have people that gather together based on someone's wealth. And then they gather together to get more. So what's happening here is people are drawn to wealth, not necessarily because they care about the person, but because they want what that person has. Living in California almost my entire life, I've seen this play out many, many times. People's motives getting exposed because of money and assets. It says, so if you have wealth, you're gonna attract a lot of friends, but it's not because of the person. It's because of what the person has.
It's pretty shallow reason to wanna cozy up to someone. It says, but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them. So what this is talking about is motives. It could be certain people in the world that are attracted to wealth because they want proximity to the person hoping to get proximity to their money and to their assets.
But then it switches here. It says, but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them. So what does poor mean here? Well, it means one who is low.
So what we're talking about here are two different definitions of wealth.
One is money and assets.
The other one is talking about social status.
This word poor here means one who is low. It's talking about social status. What this proverb is talking about is the motives of people. Some people are attracted to wealth and assets. Some people are attracted to popularity. Both of these are bad motives. If you wanna apply Occam's razor, Occam's razor is a principle that you use to develop critical thinking. And it essentially teaches that the most obvious answer is the correct answer. So if you have people that are only your friend because you have wealth, Occam's razor applied would teach they don't care about you, they care about your money. If you have someone who's close to someone because they have high social status, Occam's razor applied would mean that they don't care about the person, they care about the network of the individual.
It's a very interesting proverb as you dissect it that has to parse apart the motives of a person. That's why the Bible says in Matthew chapter five, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. We wanna make sure that we have purity of intention, purity as we relate to people, not wanting what people have, whether it's social status or wealth, but being drawn to the purity of heart that God desires each and every follower of Jesus to have.
Well, thank you so much for joining me this time. Until next time, I hope you have a beautiful day.