Money, money, and more money or power, authority, influence.  I see a lot of people working, struggling, trying hard each day to achieve any of those things.  I see them do everything just to have more money or to gain power over others.  Every now and then, I become one of them.  I know how good it feels to have the money to buy everything I want.  I know how it feels to have the power to have other people follow your every word.  It feels good since you feel like you can do anything but it is a feeling that for me, remains empty probably because of the absence of love.

I think that is what makes people strive harder and harder to gain more money or gain more power.  The good but empty feeling.  The emptiness drove them to strive for more, thinking that the emptiness will be gone as they go on.  They never stopped to realize that the emptiness will not be filled with more money or more power.  Like animals, they fight to get a bigger part of their share.  They drove away those who are weak.  They step over those who fall.  Not realizing that if only they help those weak get their share.  If only they stop to help those who fell to stand up again.  If they will only stop to realize what was really missing, they will realize that getting more will not fill the emptiness but love.

In my journey, I have come to realize that only in giving will I find fulfillment and contentment.  Only in helping will I find joy.  Seeing the faces of the people whom I have helped one way of another fills my heart with an overflowing joy.  Hearing the words thank you makes me feel that it is all worth it.  Gaining new friends fill the emptiness I use to feel before.

I am not saying I am perfect and that I never trample on the weak in my entire life.  All I am saying is that, now that I have come to realize these things, I have become more sensitive to my own actions. Whenever I feel that I am trying to get more than my share, I stop and ask myself what I will gain from getting more and most of the time, the answer is none.  What profits a man when he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?  Nothing.  I would rather lose this world than lose my soul.

Categories : Faith