God does not change!!!…Unless…(Part 1)

One day, I asked in a group, “What happens to our relationship with God when we gain wealth?”

The group appeared confused at first so I clarified. I described that when people are poor, they tend to pray for their daily bread. However, when people begin to gain wealth, they no longer need to pray for their daily bread and, therefore, begin to pray for other things. As we gain more wealth and are less reliant on outside sources for our basic needs, how does our relationship with God change?

I must have struck a chord because one person in the group immediately retorted, “Does God change?”

It was a fairly interrogational tone but I remained open-minded. I replied, “No” understanding the implication. He then replied, “God does not change, therefore our relationship does not change.”

At that point, it appeared there was a misunderstanding. I clarified, “God might not change, but we might change and, thus, our relationship can change. Much like when you are a boy, you have one relationship with your parents, but when you are an adult, that relationship is different.”

I was expecting a Eureka moment but perhaps I was unable to get my point across. The reply was, “Does God change in the Bible?”

I replied, “The way we understand God has shifted over the year.”

I was then encouraged to go back to the Bible to see that God does not change and, therefore, this question was moot. The moderator then commented that this was a Finance and Religion group, not a philosophy group. The group subsequently discussed whether getting a mortgage was biblical.

I respect people’s differing points of view. However, I’m surprised that it was not a disagreement on views, but rather, an explicit inability to understand the nature of the question.

So what was going on in this group? And what is our relationship with God as it relates to Wealth? And what does Wealth have to do with High Performance?

Let’s talk about that next week.