When I was in fifth grade, we lived in a small town in Florida where my dad was the pastor of the First Baptist Church.
The parsonage was located in a typical small-town, middle-class neighborhood. Not upper middle class. Just middle class.
One afternoon, my dad asked me to ride with him to take our housekeeper home. Yes, we had a housekeeper. Back then we referred to her as our maid. And she was fine with that.
Actually, she was proud of that. She was the preacher’s maid. And she made sure all her maid friends knew about it.
Normally, she drove. But on this particular afternoon, her car was in the shop, so we drove her home.
Turns out, I had never been to that particular part of our small town. The houses were small, the yards were mostly dirt and there was junk everywhere. I still remember feeling uncomfortable.
When we got to her house, she invited us in. I remember thinking, I don’t want to go in there. For whatever reason, we didn’t.
When we got back home, our house looked large by comparison. Our yard looked manicured by comparison. Even our car felt fine in comparison to what I saw in our maid’s neighborhood.
It was while we were living in that same house that a friend from church came over to play. His name was Bruce. I can still remember Bruce standing in our kitchen, looking around and saying, “Andy, your house is so big. Are you rich?”
I was so uncomfortable. Rich? We weren’t rich. And our house wasn’t big. Our house was normal size. But when we took Bruce home that evening, I understood.
By comparison, our house was big. By comparison, I’m sure it looked to Bruce as if we were rich. Heck, by comparison, we were rich.
And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it?
Rich is the other guy.
Rich is that other family.
Rich isn’t just having extra.
Rich is having as much extra as the person who has more extra than you.
Rich is having more than you currently have.
If that’s the case, you can be rich and not know it. You can be rich and not feel it. You can be rich and not act like it.
And that is a problem. In fact, that’s why we need to take a look at it.
