BusinessDay... the voice of business: Burden of poverty

Burden of poverty
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JUDE NDU on 29 April, 2008 02:00:00
 
The socio-economic class between the rich and the poor will continue to divide
as long as the so-called poor people refuse to see the boundless opportunity
around them, but would rather prefer to see themselves as poor and wretched,
while the “rich-ards” virtually are getting richer everyday. Whatever may
have been said against the gospel of prosperity, the fact still remains that,
“people who don’t see it proper to prosper will no matter what, end up
proper paupers”. Your prospects can actually determine your prosperity (Prov.
10:28)
You have no right to be poor. Poverty is not your birthright. Rather, it is a
violation of your fundamental human right to the basic necessities and luxuries
of a normal human life. Wake up to reality.
What is poverty?
Poverty can be referred to as a state of being poor and inferior. The pioneers
in the study of poverty defined poverty as a situation where the income of an
individual is insufficient to obtain to obtain a minimum necessity for the
maintenance of merely physical efficiency. Poverty implies that the standard of
living is considerably lower than the acceptable norm. However, this lower level
of living standard may be different for different countries or the same for the
same countries at different times.
Poverty is hunger and not knowing where your next meal is coming from, poverty
is not having a roof over your head and having nowhere to go. Poverty is being
sick not being able to see a doctor. It is death of a child from a preventable
illness because you are unable to pay for medications or clean water. Poverty is
not being able to go to school to read and write, poverty is being unemployed
and having little or no chance of getting a decent job, even if there are any
because you have no basic vocational training or skill set. Poverty is
powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom with no hope of change or a
future. Poverty is making you live one day at a time.
Poverty is more recognized than defined hence, it is difficult to give an
acceptable definition universally. It is a multi-dimensional, socio-economic and
cultural situation that transcends economic description. It is a concept that
has defied universally accepted and objective definition or assessment because
it is only an expression of life situation but also equally a state of mind and
perception of self in a complex web of social relations.
Who are the poor?
The majority of the worlds’ poor are said to live in rural areas and are
disproportionately dependent on their natural resources and not on their human
capital and capacity for survival. Poverty is closely associated with
illiteracy. Survey shows that 80% of rural poor people have no formal education.
Education and vocational skill training are critical success factor for human
and economic development on a long term. The vicious circle of poverty tends to
feed on the power of ignorance.
It was observed that the poor have no uniquely common characteristics that
distinguish them from the rich than their poverty itself. In a strictly economic
sense, poverty may be viewed as a distance on a continuum towards a zero
purchasing power thus economic conception of poverty is often useful when the
issue of who gets what is concerned.
Poverty is a plague. There is no pleasure in poverty, no usefulness whatsoever
in going through life subjecting yourself to lack and limitation. If your desire
is to be rich, you must believe in the desire and right to be rich before you
will ever become one. It is not a sin to aspire to be rich if your motives are
very sincere.
Man’s right to life means his right to have the free and unrestricted use of
all the things which may be necessary for his complete development. It is
perfectly all right for anyone to want to be rich; for a man’s highest and
happiest moment is found in the bestowal of gifts on those he loves. The man who
has nothing to give cannot fill his proper place as husband, father and citizen.
A man must be able to, as a man, provide for himself and his family. No man
ought to be satisfied with little, if he is capable of using and enjoying more.
I once heard somebody say, that “the man who owns all he wants for living of
all the life he is capable for his rich. And no man who has plenty of money can
have all he wants”. The fact is that it is not possible to live a really
complete and satisfactory life unless one has the means. No man can rise to his
greatest possible height in human development unless he has plenty of money to
use. Our society is so organized that you must have money in order to acquire
something for your comfort. Money make the world go round, it is the currency of
life.
Wrong believe about money.
One of the most common deeply embedded and harmful beliefs is that money is bad
or demonic. Supporting this with the popular passage that, “money is the root
of all evil”. While actually the entire passage reveals – “the love of
money is the root of all evil”. Obviously the uncontrolled love of money can
promote greed and self-centeredness, but the danger actually lies in becoming a
slave of money. Money is an excellent servant but can also assume the position
of a very powerful master or monster if the desire for acquiring it is not
properly guided by godly values and principles.
Money is badly maligned in many areas of our society and some of those reasons
are quite justified. But money should be seen as it is an economic tool for
getting things done. The more money you have, the more things you can get done.
At this stage, you must realize that money is merely a means to an end and not
end of itself. Money is a means of livelihood.
There is a very wrong assumption that money as an essential commodity is
‘mint’ for the rich few and that is why money is a relatively scarce
resource. The rich and the poor, God made them all and what he can make happen
for one he can make happen for another irrespective of who you are or where you
come from, irrespective of religion, gender, tribe, race etc. God is not a
respecter of persons or place but a respecter of covenants particularly His
covenant of wealth.
Make god your source and sustainer
It is perfectly God’s desire that you should be rich and successful. He wants
you to get rich because he can express himself better through you if you have
plenty of things to use in giving him praise and glory. A bible passage says,
“through prosperity shall he get his kingdom be spread abroad”. God can live
more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life. You must
understand that the thought he thinks towards you are thought of riches and
wealth and not of poverty. What he wants is that you make the most of yourself,
for yourself and for others, and you can only help others more by making the
most of yourself than in any other way. That which makes you want more money is
the same as that which makes the plant grows. It is the life of God seeking
fuller expression of your unlimited possibilities.
I perceive strongly that the clues of God’s original covenant of wealth for
anyone who desire to be rich are to covet God and not a covetous spirit. Job
22:21 says, “Submit to God and be at peace with him. In this way prosperity
will come to you”. You do not have to covet the prosperity of property of
others, or to look at with wishful or lustful eyes. No man has anything of which
you cannot have yourself. “Thou shall neither covet your neighbours’ wife,
nor his goods. The blessing of the lord will bring you wealth, with no trouble
attached. People are envious, covetous, and selfish have no real chance of
becoming wealthy no matter how much they desire it. Note:  Animosity will reduce
you to an animal. Avoid it.
There is an old saying that a youth with a single aim of life arrives early at
the harvest. Youthful life is more often not an asset. It is an unfortunate
thing that so many of our youths this days should start out in life with just
one aim and ambition, and that is to make money. This becomes the leading
purpose in their lives and thwarts their way of looking things. Everything else
is seen in dwarfed proportions. They do not consider making life of building
character. They are bent only on making money. This greed for making money has
become the misfortune and corruption that has almost collapsed the moral
foundation of our society and is the all-absorbing topic everywhere. There is no
more distressing sight in world than that of one who is completely in the
clutches of a heartless, grasping, greed-spurred on by the ambition which has
taken possession of him – the devouring ambition to get ahead of others in
moneymaking, to outshine them socially actually destroys happiness. Man makes
the money and money never makes the man. We must continually think therefore, of
what the influence would be pointing all our faculties, focusing all our
energies upon the money making goal when everything in us looks money ward and
our gaze is held persistently upon the Naira and what it will bring. A feast is
made for laughter and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for
everything – Prov. 10:19.