You Can’t Make Yourself Happy With Your Own Money - Merle Burkholder

Well, a wise man told me one time, uh, you'll never make yourself happy with your own money. You can make other people happy with your money, but you'll never make yourself happy with your own money. That's—ooh, I like that. That's pretty profound, actually. So, uh, and I—and I think that's true. And there are people that chase wealth and think that, well, if I just have a little more, I have this or that, then I'd be—then I'd be happy.

And, uh, it's a false narrative. It's not really true. It's, uh, it's—it's, uh, it's a false dream to chase, to think that wealth is going to bring—bring happiness. Um, of course, we spent most of our lives in—in ministry and not—I have never—I haven't done things in life because of how much it pays. And, uh, so, um, yeah, I'll never have been—never will be a wealthy person. But, um, when we lived in Dryden, there was a, uh, couple, their business couple that we related to. And it was a wealthy business couple. And—and, um, he was an agnostic. Uh, he felt like, uh, well, he believed that you can't know if God exists. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't.

And you don't find out until you die, and then it's too late. So, and he and I had a lot of conversations about it. But, uh, uh, anyway, that was—he maintained that—that position. He got in—his strategy was that he would get involved in the church just enough that if he died and God did exist, he thought he'd be okay, but not too much. So that if he died and God didn't exist, he hadn't wasted a lot of time and money in the church. So that was sort of his—wow—his strategy. And that's an odd philosophy. Yeah. But it was kind of how he—he lived life. Okay. And then, um, and we had been to their—we'd go to their house for dinner.

They'd come to our house for dinner sometimes. And—and—uh, uh, and we enjoyed talking to each other. And—and then we went to Haiti. We lived in Haiti for a year. And when we came back from Haiti, he said, "Well, I want to have you come over to my cottage and—and um, talk about Haiti." So he said, "I'll meet you up by the Trans Canada Highway because it's a little challenging to find my cottage." And so he did.

And it was good he did because there were a lot of turns back, these little gravel roads back to his cottage on the lake. And—and my problem started when he met me by the Trans Canada Highway because he was driving a Jaguar and I was driving a Ford Escort station wagon that wasn't too new. And I'm looking at his car and thinking, you know, we parked beside him when we got to his cottage. And I'm looking in his car and thinking, that's a real car. And I wonder what it—what do we think of my car? And I wonder what it feels like to drive a Jaguar like that. That would be—that would really be something.

And, uh, then we went to their cottage. Well, their cottage, we'd been to their house, but this was their cottage. And their cottage was bigger and nicer than my house. And I thought, oh, this is—yeah, this is really nice. And then he said, "Well, dinner's not quite ready yet. So, um, I'll take your family sailing, um, while we wait for dinner to be ready." So we had a 40-foot sailboat and we went out on the lake sailing. And—and I'm out on the lake with him sailing. And I think, you know, this is how a person ought to live. This is—this is the way life should be done. Like you have the Jaguar, the cottage, the sailboat.

And this is—this is living. This is—this is how life should be done. And then we got back into the dock and—and we were going to have dinner down on the dock. And—and he said, um, no, we're going to have dinner down here on the dock. And but after dinner, we're going to go up to the cottage and talk about Haiti. And, uh, but we have a jacuzzi on the dock. And so if your children want to go in the jacuzzi while we go talk about Haiti, they could do that. And I'm thinking, no, he has a jacuzzi too. And—and—uh, so we're there and we had steak and baked potatoes. And my steak and baked potato didn't taste very good because I was feeling sorry for myself.

And I'm thinking, you know, like, I don't have anything like he has at all. He has the Jaguar, the sailboat, the cottage, the jacuzzi. And—and I got nothing. And the problem is the way I'm living my life, I never will. And I even have to go to somebody else's house to eat steak. And it's just like my life is so miserable. And, uh, then we got up to the cottage and we're talking about Haiti. And partway through the conversation, he turned to his wife and said, you know what, Pat, we should have got more involved in the church. Uh, because he said, we never have done anything for anybody. We travel, but we just go look at stuff and come home.

And he's saying, look at the things that Morona's family did. Like, we don't know anything about that. Like, we've never done anything like that. And, you know, I just kind of find it kind of felt God talking to me and saying, you know what, like you were down there crying in your steak and baked potato and feeling sorry for yourself. But actually, if anybody should feel sorry for themselves, it's him because, uh, yeah, he has all the stuff. Um, but he's never really done anything of significance, uh, for people. And, you know, if I get to the end of my life and I had lived 70 or 80 years and all I had was a sailboat and a Jaguar and a jacuzzi, it's not—it's not enough.

Like, it's not worth it. Um, and the world's filled with people that are 45, 50 years old that met all their financial goals and are bored and don't know what to do with the rest of their life. And so chasing wealth is just kind of a—it's a phantom. And we'll never make ourselves happy with—with the pursuit of wealth. And the things that make a difference for eternity are the things that are really fulfilling. And, you know, the—the path that God takes us on is—it's a—it's a—it's a life of adventure, uh, because you don't know what he has coming next. And we'd like to have the 20-year plan, but he doesn't do that. And—and so it's—it's exciting because you never know what God has around next year or around the next bend.

And it's also fulfilling because you realize it's making a difference for—for eternity. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I think you had something—something powerful there where you said money, our own money won't—won't make us happy, but it can make other people happy in the sense of you can use it in service to others. Right. Do you—do you want to elaborate on that statement at all? Well, I think of, um, uh, like when people have—have needs and we are generous and give, uh, we can bless people in their moment of need.

And what they experience is way beyond the joy of what we'll experience by keeping it. And so it's true what Jesus said, that it's more blessed to give than—than to receive. And in the church community, that giving and that caring for one another is just—there's a blessing there that—that is really, really powerful. Mm-hmm. When we lived in Haiti, um, one Sunday morning in Sunday school, the lesson in Sunday school was, um, I've been young and I've been old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread. Mm-hmm. And the people were like, yeah, that's right. That's—that's true. And so that afternoon, I was talking to the—the Haitian pastor, and I said to him, now we had that verse in Sunday school.

I've been young and I've been old, and I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread. But you and I both have people coming to our house every day asking for food. So, so how can you say, yeah, that's true when we have people coming every day asking for food? So they are begging bread, right?

And he's like, no, what you're—what you're thinking is wrong. He was saying, you will never see a person in our church at the market begging from the public. But we do tell each other what we need, and we give to each other, and we help each other. And so you will never see one of our church members begging bread from the general public. Uh, and there's that dignity in being able to give to someone else in their time of need. Mm-hmm. That brings joy and—and um, yeah. Mm-hmm. To both—to both us as a giver and to the person who receives it.

That's so powerful because the deception that comes with wealth is—is really hard to untangle. Yeah. Because it can feel like such a solution to life's problems. And maybe it's a—it's a—uh, I heard someone say money doesn't solve all your problems. It does solve money problems, but it doesn't solve the—the really deep things in life, you know, the search for joy and meaning and fulfillment and purpose. Um, wow, that's—that's—there's a lot to unpack there. Yeah. I—I will say I'm—I'm glad you didn't, uh, go for the sailboat and the jacuzzi in the cabin because I feel like, wow, you know, how many of these stories that you have wouldn't even exist if you'd went that route.