This seems like a super easy question. Too easy. Like, why would anyone even bother to ask that dumb question, easy.
Rich is the obvious answer.
Rich allows me to pay off my debt and own things outright. Rich gives me the opportunity to walk into any store and simply purchase what I want with out even looking at a price tag. Rich is, even to those of us who may know better, an open gate towards happy. I think most of us can say we know that rich doesn't equal happy, but we still have a hard time believing that it wouldn't at least up our chances to get to happy.
No one in their right mind would CHOSE to be poor.
Poverty is ugly and I am not even talking about REAL poverty- third world, emaciated, disease ridden, orphan making poverty. Just to be poor in America is really unattractive. The poverty cycle is real and so many people don't even have the opportunity to get their feet off the ground because of it. Poor means dinner out of cans and long waits on the phone to speak to government assistance officials who will only transfer you or tell you you have to come in or that they can't help at all. Poor means maybe your lights will be on and maybe they won't. Clearly, there is no WAY any of this could open that gate to the being happy thing.
So to recap, I have stated that money at least allows the opportunity to get at happiness, while poverty couldn't possibly.
I don't actually believe either of those things.
If I am honest- of course money sounds nice, but not because I want all the things. Mostly I like the idea of money because I love giving money away. I wish I had lots of it so I could afford to be more generous than I already am. The flip side of that though, is that I do not want the responsibility of managing money. I do not want to have to make grown up educated decisions about where to put it to grow it or how much to save or how much my kids will need one day. And quite honestly a large part of me doesn't even think that I should have to think that way. If God says He has got my back, especially if I give, and also that whoever gives to the least of us is actually giving to Him- why must I be so savvy about storing up anything here on earth? Cause, my kids need to go to college and what if my car breaks down and yadayadayada, but as I stated, IF GOD SAYS HE HAS GOT MY BACK.....it's all very complicated. Maybe, not really. We make it complicated. It is because of all of this complication that more money is unappealing to me- unless I really can just give it away.
Sometimes I DO wish I could just sell all our crap and have cellphone, laptop, TV smashing parties and move to Africa to love on orphans. There is definite appeal in the having of nothing to me also. I know myself and my family would learn so much more about Jesus if we had nothing but gave everything in a place completely removed from America. I know that life would be so much more fulfilling in the way of soul growth. I am pretty sure God put a dash of missionary in my recipe and I do believe that me and my kids will get to experience more of that in the foreseeable future.
So, to answer the question, I don't want either. I just want to learn to be completely, unquestionably thankful for exactly what I have and where I am at. I want to learn happiness and fulfillment in Christ alone rather than stuff- or even people. The 1% or the 99%, we are all both better or worse off than someone else and should be able to find thanks in whatever little or much that has been entrusted to us.
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