Writing, Helping and Failed Promises

When I started writing on medium, I admitted that writing ought to focus on communicating not merely expressing. I’ve written lots of poems and in that arena, the expression is the art; the communication is merely the media.

Somehow I took a detour. I got addicted to cleaning out my personal cobwebs because it felt good even if it was mostly cringey and useless to you. So today, I’ll keep it simple.

The shadow that follows Money

Have you ever considered why you want fame. Or wealth. Or a job. Or anything linked indirectly to money.

Before we jump into that, have you considered that in Scripture the only direct competition to God is mammon?

Search all the areas where only two options of a master are presented, the only instances where it explicitly presents a binary option is serving God or Mammon.

I’ve really thought about that the past few days. Satan is never put in a place of equality or a place that threatens God’s worship. As powerful as I perceive him to be. Even as the ruler of this world.

Yet when all is said and done, money is. I go around trying to act like I don’t Like money or that money has no hold on me and maybe those are true. But it’s still very much a whisper I heard loudly. Listen to sometimes but always need to speak truth back to.

So money. But what exactly about money makes it vaunted to a position that to worship it is to have no room to worship God.

I almost feel like there are other things in my life that I can revere or worship as long as they are medium to glorify God. You know I can worship my wife as long as it points to the power of God to craft such beauty. I can worship my father as long as it’s thread of honor amplifies my Heavenly Father. The list goes on but when I go back to the scriptures that present that binary choice — money or God.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that money takes up so much room in the heart that it like God leaves no room for anything else.

It’s so dangerous. I’m still processing this because the reality I live in with money is one where I treat it like one of those other things. I treat it like a father, a job, a woman or anything that creates a deep reverence within me for God. Anything that reminds me of God’s awesome grace. Anything that reminds me that God cares for me. That God loves me.

Yet Scriptures screams the opposite. Scripture says that money is a monogamous woman. She is jealous, sexy, rich, smart, kind, tender hearted, and MOST definitely ATHEIST. She is all consuming and intolerant.

It’s quite jarring because this has been my experience with her but I often dim my senses to this truth because her jealousy is not loud. She is not the jealous woman that tells you to delete all your female friends after one date. Instead she flaunts her large breast in a room dimly lit and requires giving up my phone to enter in.

Often times, the pleasure is so great that when I return to the land of the living, even if all my female friends are deleted from my phone, I feel no anger or hurt but instead a deeper lust.

I cannot believe money is so kind she wants me all to herself.

In other words, the subtlety of her worship is cunning. On the other hand, while money visits me even in the synagogue of my Heavenly Father; even sit down and worship alongside me. My Father is the jealous woman that will not allow anything that competes for His sole worship.

God is the monogamous woman that lays clear terms but won’t manipulate my love.

His love often feels distant and roomy and enstranged. Even when I am pursued by gods that do not satisfy.

Why do I live a God sized lie

Immediately as I ponder the jealousy of God and the jealousy of money. It’s fascinating to accept God as that woman. That woman who will not tolerate competition. That woman that wants my heart alone. That woman that wants to consume every dross of lust. That woman that will not fight for me in the way an egotistical maniac would enjoy. That woman that is steady in her love and intolerance for donkey dung.

That woman that I have labeled toxic.

God is the toxic lady I stay away from. And money is the hooker that has her legs always open with a smile. Money is the friendly neighborhood strip club. She drains my pocket in a way that only becomes apparent when all my chips are down. She drains me with pleasure.

Money sows the fire pleasure in my soul every chance it gets but touches me with a soothing touch; a touch illogically addicting it overpowers my hierarchy.

I find myself a slave to her, even when I didn’t Choose her. She is the smile that feels like a dream, the pleasure out of this world, the faux ecstasy of arriving ever with no satiety.

Pleasure is her Priest.

I have been struggling with my single hood. I have been struggling with when, why, how. I have been struggling with timing. My growth. My season.

I noticed though overtime, the answers to how, when, what seemed to have some correlation to money. When I can afford a house, when I can dress nice, when I can travel the world, when …

I was the one asking the questions, and I was the one answering them. Because deep inside me, I didn’t want marriage, I wanted pleasure. I wanted a more pleasurable life in comparison to what I live now.

Here is what I will say. I met someone and the focus of our relationship with exploring pleasure. It was addicting. And then she walked away abruptly.

It felt like someone had poured petrol on the inner desired and motivations that drove my life. All of a sudden, I stopped going to church and even when I watched online, I slept through most of it.

In my soul, I felt the voice say, what more do you want out of life but have unlimited access to this. I have considered so many thing since she left. Just to fill the hole. It’s like she came and just ripped open a dam of thirst.

The more I said yes, the more I had to have more money.

• I don’t wanna ever be in a position where I can’t get _____ -> get more money
• I wanna be able to fly anywhere or fly anyone anywhere I am -> get more money

The list does get longer but I’m focusing on the point.

Money lured with pleasure; and she is a faux polygamist.

What is your relationship with pleasure?

There in truly lies the answers to who I worship.