Not splitting words.
It’s not money that is the root of all evil. It is the love of it.
Nor is this splitting words over semantics; this is understanding that words mean things, and words in the scriptures need to be accurately defined and used, such that it is the love of money that is the root of all sorts of evil.
Money is problematic in several directions.
When we only work for a wage, we lose most of our autonomy; we work for money, becoming beholden to it and our employer. Money via our employer becomes a master, a director of our lives.
The verse is:
It is the love of it, not money itself.
And it’s not all evil, it’s all sorts of eveil.
We lose our autonomy. What does this mean?
0You have to do what you are assigned for eight hours a day. You may like your job (or do you loth it?) But you are under the instructions of your employer.
It’s not actually 8 hours a day; it’s more like 9 hours daily.
You get an hour for lunch, but you can do nothing with it except eat your lunch, maybe read a book; yes, I am that old, or watch YouTube, Netflix, or Hulu before returning to work.
But it’s more than 9 hours, there is the travel to and from work, what?
Another hour, 10 hours working.
Then there is getting ready for work, and now we are at 11 hours a day. You get home at night, and the rest of the day is shot. It’s taken up with what you need to do, have to do, kids, cleaning, preparing, eating.
By this time, your work day is 14 hours long, and that is due to having to work for money. You’ve got two more hours in the day if you want to get a good night’s sleep.
Finally, you have some time for you. That is unless your spouse wants some of that time, or your too tired, or you just want to blob.
This is what working for money looks like. You are not your own; you have been bought with a price, and I am not talking about Jesus, the cross, or the resurrection.
This is losing your autonomy.
25 years self-employed
I’ve been self-employed for 25 years, which has disadvantages.
- When I’m sick, I don’t get paid.
- A public holiday is another unpaid day.
- I have to save for vacations, not just the vacations, but also the wage that is not coming in because I am not at work.
If this is all I have for being self-employed then i’m not very good at being self-employed.
However….
I have autonomy.
I do have to attend to taxes, VAT, GST, bank payments, various interest payments, insurance, and professional fees.
But I have Autonomy.
Unlike an employee who only works in a business. I get to work on my business,even as a YWAMer.
- I do get to choose my course.
- I do get to choose my hours.
- I do get to choose where in my future I want to go.
- I get to choose how I do what I do.
- I get to plan with God.
- I get to become good at what I do.
- I get to know why I do what I do.
- I get to own my mistakes.
- I get to find out why they happened.
- I get to learn how not to repeat them.
This is the power of being self-employed, even in YWAM.
A quick word for the YWAMer.
Most tax jurisdictions see you as self-employed.
You are not an employee at the YWAM base you work at; you are an independent contractor.
If your base is telling you you need to “work” 40 hours a week, then either you have a poor work ethic, and they are trying to help you with that, or they are overbearing and have lost sight of the power of autonomy and have lost sight of their calling in God to be a facilitator more that director.
Bases need to work on empowering staff in their calling in Jesus and staff growing in their autonomy.
In leadership, we are called to serve, to help staff strategize their vision and plan for its fulfillment.
Leadership also needs to give staff room for mastery; then, not only do they have the autonomy to get the job done but the right and ability to become good at getting the job done. They master the job.
- If their job is to cut down trees with an axe, they are given mastery to learn how to use a chainsaw.
- If they are building with a hammer, they get to master a nail gun.
- If they are writing anything, they get access to AI tools and learn to use them well.
Finally, in their autonomy and mastery, they are provided purpose.
Why do a job if you never know why you are doing it?
A clear vision from leadership and the ability to see the progress is paramount to being self-motivated and self-employed and not just an employee for YWAM, and an unpaid employee at that!
An employee's loss of autonomy causes a mere working for money.
Working for money is a sure way to become a slave to that money, to fall into a love-hate relationship with it. This is the love (need) of money (even the hate of money) that is the root of all sorts of evil.
If you know how to work with money, something like embezzlement becomes ridiculous. Employee embezzlement is an issue, this is not just money, but time, resources, industrial secrets. If employees have been empowered with autonomy, mastery and purpose, why steal coins when you work at a gold mine, and get to share in its capacity? If you work from autonomy, mastery, and purpose, money is merely one of many tools at your disposal, and as a tool money is low down on the list.
Money is low on the tool list? Why?
It is a trap to think money will solve your problems, be it to get ahead in life (employment) or to get a job done (mastery). Even an employer knows that money is only so useful to advance his business.
As a self-employed YWAMer, church worker, and follower of Jesus who is employed, these are some of the tools that put money low down on the list.
- acquiring skills in collaboration,
- teamwork (even if you prefer to work by yourself),
- promotion of the other person,
- encouragement of the other,
- empowerment of the other,
- of helping to grow the pie bigger such that even as your slice gets smaller, you have more pie, and more people have pie,
- that you can advance so that all you do is win-win,
- that even if they win better, that you win.
An attitude of working with money instead of for money opens up a different paradigm; all the tools above become yours because money also becomes only a tool.
Another aspect that becomes yours when you gain autonomy and see money as a mere tool is luck.
People who merely work for money see other people’s success as them having luck that they do not have.
Luck
This luck falls into four categories that the workers for money may not see.
- Plain dumb luck.
- Shaking many trees luck.
- Cultivating luck.
- Attracting luck.
These are neither new ideas, nor mine, but because I have autonomy, I have time and perspective to educate myself.
Plain dumb luck.
If we have our heads down trying to forge a way forward as we work for money, we may miss the simple opportunity that appears that the lucky person takes advantage of. A lack person is often merely someone who has their radar up and running for when opportunities arise.
Shaking many trees luck.
This is the lucky person making their own luck and trying and failing and trying again.
If you shake enough trees, some fruit will fall out.
Cultivating luck.
Cultivating luck is learning which trees to shake, how, and when.
You don’t shake dead trees or trees out of season.
You learn experience from your shaking of trees, you get to plot your progress, and record what works and what does not.
You make sure to reward back into that tree with pruning, fertilizer, replanting, whatever word is useful, not just to be a mere taker of fruit.
This is less now luck and more becoming a skilled person with others.
Attracting luck.
Suppose you have learned to cultivate luck.
If you are generous, return to where the fruit came from and reward the tree.
If you have a win-win attitude, have an attitude of enlarging the pie, sharing the pie, and promoting the other. Then people will want to come to you with their opportunities.
They will want to collaborate with you.
You attract luck.
So luck is not luck.
Luck is work.
Luck is being skilled in yourself and with and for others.
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