Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Intentions

When did we as humans decide that God's creations belonged to us? When did we decide that His creations were owned by us? When did money become the center of everything we do?

Once upon a time, when God created the earth and Adam and Eve and all their furry little companions, we coexisted quite peacefully. Plants became food for animals and animals became food for humans. Somewhere down the line, someone decided it would be a good idea to claim living things for themselves. Someone thought that because they had been living on a certain parcel of land for an extended period of time, that parcel would become their territory. If you want to walk on that area of land, you must first be granted permission by the person who sits on top of it. Then they decided they wanted to give up that land and move to a different land. Well, you can't just freely leave your land for the public, now can you? No, now you must trade with the person who desires your land. Give me a cow and I will give you the exclusive rights that I gave myself to sit on this piece of land. This continued on and on until all pieces of land were "claimed."

Now we don't stop there. Oh no. We move on to other resources. Trees. If you want this tree that rests on my parcel of land, you must give me two rabbits and a sheep. Water. If you want me to not block the river so you can use some of it too, you must hand over your raccoon pelts. Animals. I like that cow over there, and I want it for myself, so I will lead it to my parcel of land and stick my name on it, claiming it as my own. I don't care if the cow resists my leading it, I will force the cow to be mine. Food. I found out that this shrub over here on my piece of land is edible, and if you don't want to starve to death, you must give me one rabbit for one week's supply of shrubbery.

Then comes the money. I melted this piece of metal into a pretty round shape. If you want it, you must give me a piece of cloth. Somehow I found out that everybody loves shiny round pieces of metal, so I am going to set up a system where everybody trades shiny pieces of metal for things they want, such as that piece of land you are sitting on top of.

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure God intended for His creations to be used and shared among His entire Kingdom, not just by those people who can get their hands on shiny pieces of metal. It seems absurd that we would strive to obtain small metallic objects, because those somehow raise our value as a person.

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"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless."  --Ecclesiastes 5:10