Today I had the privilege of telling my congregation that they are all rich. I don't think they believed me at first so I had to spell it out a little bit. The median income for families in Randolph County, Indiana in 2004 was $37,877. That makes us the top 3.8% richest people in the world! Believe it or not, I live around a lot of people that are among the richest in the world. Anyone who makes over $47,500 is in the top 1% of the wealthiest people alive.
3.8 billion people in this world live on less than $2 per day. Less than 3% of the world population owns a car. Very few can afford someone to cook and serve them meals (restaurants). We are the abnormality here in the west. We are blessed with more than we need - we are rich!
I've blogged about this before. We are blessed in this nation and we miss it so often because we don't FEEL rich, because we know some folks who have more than us. We think that if we could just get MORE than we would feel rich. However, when we do get more we find that there is someone who still has more than us so we don't feel rich.
Putting our wealth in perspective as compared to the rest of the world helps me not to stress over something like the "financial crisis" that America finds itself in. Matthew 6:19-34 is a great reminder not to sweat it too.
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