Money has finally arrived, and behold, a new prophet has been born. Yesterday, this same man was practically counting the days until somebody remembered him. Yesterday, the church rat could probably have afforded more dignity than he could. Today, because money has entered his pocket, everybody has suddenly become an ant in his eyes. Friends have become liabilities. Poor people have become invisible. Those who knew him before prosperity are now treated like historical archives best kept out of sight. Apparently, his bank account did not merely increase his purchasing power; it upgraded his opinion of himself.
This is the strange comedy of money when it meets an unprepared character. The man who once needed people now behaves as though people need him for oxygen. He writes people off with the confidence of a king, talks down to the poor with the arrogance of inherited royalty and bullies those who dare to disagree with him. Yet the amusing contradiction is that money may have changed his wardrobe, his address and his circle, but it has not necessarily changed the person wearing the clothes. A fool with money is still a fool; he is simply a better funded one. As the Nigerian saying goes, when a poor man gets money, his character is tested; when a proud man gets money, his pride gets a microphone.
And perhaps this is why Christians should stop praying only, “Lord, bless me.” We should also pray, “Lord, prepare me for the blessing.” Because wealth without character is not necessarily elevation; sometimes it is amplification. It magnifies what was already inside. If there was generosity, money can make generosity louder. If there was compassion, wealth can widen its reach. But if there was arrogance, corruption, cruelty or insecurity, prosperity can give those things a private jet. Some people may indeed have been better off remaining financially modest until their character caught up with their ambition. Not because poverty is holiness, but because there are blessings that require shoulders strong enough to carry them.
The tragedy becomes deeper when such people begin to distribute moral verdicts from the very platform their questionable conduct built. They condemn others while excusing themselves, dismiss people because they are poor while conveniently forgetting their own beginnings, and speak about integrity as though nobody remembers yesterday. They have mastered the art of looking down from a ladder while forgetting that someone once held the ladder for them. But Scripture offers a sobering correction: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18. Wealth can silence human critics, but it cannot silence God. Money can make people afraid to confront you, but it cannot make heaven afraid to judge you.
So, what is real wealth? Is it the ability to make people kneel? The power to make one phone call and rearrange another person’s life? The capacity to insult the poor because your own table is now full? No. Real wealth is having enough and still remaining human. It is remembering the road you travelled after arriving at the destination. It is being able to help without humiliating, correct without bullying and succeed without becoming unbearable. Money has not truly blessed a man if, in gaining riches, he loses his conscience, his humility and his fear of God. Money did not miss road because it entered his pocket. Money missed road when it entered his pocket and his humanity walked out through the back door. In the end, the greatest evidence that God has blessed you is not that everyone now fears you. It is that, despite everything you have acquired, you have not forgotten how to love the people you once needed.This version gives you the sarcasm, Nigerian social commentary and Christian warning without making an unsupported accusation of corruption against a specific individual.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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