Thursday, December 13, 2018

Recognizing Wealth


Written by Uyoyou Christiana Charles-Iyoha


If you have no idea what wealth is, you will not recognize wealth when it comes to you. Wealth is not necessarily tons of money paid into your bank account; or given to you in sack loads of diverse currencies such as the United States of America dollars, the British Pound, The European Union Euro, Canadian dollars, the Japanese Yen, Chinese, Russian Ruble, Nigerian Naira, Ghanaian Cedi, Indian Rupee or Indonesian Rupiah or any currency of the world. It is also not gold or diamond or other precious metals and stones. It is also not real estate which you are blessed to inherit or acquire on your own.

While all of these account for wealth, they do not completely make up wealth. They are to some extent the appearance of wealth. This is why people who are truly blessed with wealth are not negatively impacted when they lose money in unfavorable business deals, when real estate is lost to natural or manmade disasters or poor bargaining powers; or precious stones and metals are lost to people who specialize in stealing such resources. This is because true wealth is in the mind; strategically situated in you so that no one can steal it from you except you decide to give it away for free through indiscretion.

True wealth is usually a divine gift or divine gifts from God to you, specifically deposited in you for you to prosper, earn money and acquire what money acquires and what people erroneously refer to as wealth. That is why a number of people ignorantly pursue money; slave for money without ever getting real money because the true wealth which is resident in them and can all money speedily to them is ignored at the expense of chasing money.



Perhaps, the story of Ali Hafed who abandoned the large diamond mine given to him in quest of diamonds which he did not find anyway and died poor best illustrates what true wealth is all about. All his adult life, Ali Hafed lived in his farm, a large farm with a stream or river flowing through. This implies that he did not have to irrigate his farm as the farm was amply supplied with water. This means that Ali Hafed’s farm was like the land God gave to the Israelites, amply supplied with water by God. Please read Deuteronomy Chapter 11 verses 10 to 15. All that was required of Ali Hafed was to till the land, plant his crops, take care of the weeds and be on the lookout for animals and birds that preyed on planted crops. Not much work considering though considering that there was much more to the land Ali Hafed owned than just farming plants. Why? The Bible records in Deuteronomy Chapter 8 verses 7 to 9 that the land God blessed the Israelites with was not only for agricultural purposes but also for mining purposes to unearth the vast deposit of mineral resources that will bring additional income to them.

While agriculture would take care of their stomach infrastructure and other needs, the vast mineral resources would provide additional financial resources for development that would translate into abundant financial resources which could be further deployed into other development areas and investments that would compound into high yields socially, economically, etc. Herein is the crux of the matter. God did not input the reference to mineral resources for the fun of it or to massage the ego of the Israelites. The reference to mineral resources was for them to pay attention to the land as they worked the land; to observe the land carefully for anything beyond the ordinary. Besides, the Israelites were not strangers to mineral resources, other precious metals and stones beneath the earth. They had seen gold and silver as well as other precious stones while in Egypt. The reference to these resources therefore was for them to PAY RAPT ATTENTION to the land as they walked and worked; which is what Ali Hafed should have done the moment he heard about diamonds. He should have carried out extensive research on where they are found; what they looked like before selling off his rich diamond mine which he erroneously thought was only an agricultural land. A little more patience, more attention to details would have revealed that the bright colored stones he saw at the river, close to the river, on the ground as he dug up soil preparing the land to plant crops were the diamonds he went in quest of in his ill fated journey which impoverished him to death.


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