About money, and fear

5 Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you.  I will never abandon you.”[b] 6 So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear.  What can mere people do to me?”  – Hebrews 13:5-6

It is not with an intent to preach that I write this, but with an intent of love, to free others facing the same internal turmoil of feeling underpaid, undervalued, being ripped-off, or overworked.  For I  myself was and am still, a slave and entrapped by these false sense of monetary justice, for which the true solution seems in the following direction:

Do not love money, do not be bitter about your salary, or be greedy, or envious, about matters of pay.  Know that the rewards on this earth do not truly satisfy, that your worth is not defined by your salary, that this system is severely flawed, and that while we do seek to advance and advocate justice, focusing on maximizing our own pay, recognition and reward is not the best means to this end.

Know that you are a desperately beloved, precious and unique one of God, he who is the ultimate rich one, the ultimate powerful one, the ultimately wise one and the only one who truly knows your value, your worth, your talents, your efforts, your every, every intimate trait.

So go forth doing all your work- ones you enjoy and ones you detest- giving your best and being your best.  Humbly and rightfully assess yourself, and be thankful that the One in Heaven who loves you, carries your burdens with you, and redeems your faults and mistakes.

“I have said this before and I would say it many, many times, for fear seriously constrains people who do not wholly understand God’s goodness by personal experience, although they know it by faith.  It is truly a wonderful thing to know by experience the friendship and the tenderness with which he treats those who go by this road and to see how he defrays, as it were, all the expenses of the journey.

I do not find it strange that those who have not known this attention should wish for assurance of some interest.  Yet you know that it is one hundred to one, even in this life, and that Our Lord has said: “Ask, and you shall receive.”  If you do not believe his Majesty when he says this several times in his Gospel, it is certainly of little use to wear myself out, sisters, telling you the same thing.  However, if any of you still doubt it, I assure her she has little to lose in putting it to the proof.  That is the wonderful thing about this journey: one is given more than one ever asks or even dreams of desiring.  This is absolutely certain; I know it to be true.  If you should find it untrue, never believe anything else I tell you.”

— from Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila (Collected in “A Guide to Prayer” for Ministers and Other Servants)