It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Beautiful reds, shades of green, and dancing twinkle lights are everywhere. We’re spending time with friends, family, and the people we love most.
But you know how this goes; sometimes we get sidetracked. The focus becomes questions of who to get what and what to get whom. We see a ton of blog posts with gift guides, magazine articles with present ideas, and television commercials with must-have decor. Yes, I love these helpful posts and creative ideas, but also yes, we shouldn’t forget the reason for the season.
To keep things in perspective this Christmas season, I’ve created a list of 10 things money can’t buy.
1. Contentment
Money can buy you a car, a house, and a wardrobe. And more money can get you a nicer car, a finer house, and a designer wardrobe. Yet the desire for bigger and better doesn’t ever end because there’s always something that’s bigger and better. It’s a never-ending cycle. There’s no amount of money that will help you achieve contentment, and you can’t buy contentment anyway. It’s literally impossible. I would argue that not having a desire for a bigger and better lifestyle is true contentment. It’s obvious then why money can’t bring this.
2. Family
These are the people who love you most. You know that no matter what life throws at you, these are the people who will have your back. They are there for you when you go through some of life’s hardest moments, and no matter how much you try, you’ll never be able to put into words the gratitude you have for them. The goodness you have is the part of you that your parents taught you. Your siblings are your friends, and you’re thankful to have them to walk through life with you. No amount of money in the world could buy you this kind of gift.
3. Compassion
You have to work at having compassion. Caring for people comes easier for some than others, but everyone has to actively attempt to be a compassionate human being. Buying a jar of compassion would be so much easier than cultivating it. But think of the benefits of compassion. Remember when someone sympathized with you when you went through a tough a time? Or, better yet, when a friend empathized with you and could literally feel what you were going through? Your friend did not buy that feeling and money did not buy those moments.
4. Hours in a Day
So technically everyone has the same number of hours in a day, which is why we likely take them for granted. Think about it. Have you ever actually said, “Geez! I really wish I had as many hours in the day as her!”? No, because this is one area we all stand on equal ground. Take for instance the gal who puts in countless hours at work. She has the same amount of time during the week as another gal who puts in her required 40 hours. One lady spends less time with her family or with friends or with her hobby or – good grief – just plain ole relaxing. All the extra money she has earned from those extra hours at work will never be able to buy her time back.
5. Health
Some diseases do not discriminate. The famous, the rich, the common, and the poor, it doesn’t matter. These illnesses do not care who you are, and they certainly don’t care how much money you have. You cannot write a check to pay your good health to stick around nor can you bribe your previous health to come back. So be thankful for the good health you experience, take advantage of it, and help maintain it as best you can.
6. Common Sense
Not common cents. Perhaps part of the reason we sometimes lack common sense is because our society has become so enthralled with money in the first place. Common sense includes the thoughts that are obvious, the ideas that will work, and the reasonable truth. Logical thinkers usually operate with common sense.
7. Friends
When you want to go to a concert, game, get-together, parade, movie, restaurant, festival or most ridiculous event that no one wants to go to, this is who you call. These people are loyal to you. Choosing friends based on money is a dangerous game, but choosing friends based on character is a worthwhile endeavor. Your true friends love you for you, not your stuff.
8. Character
I’m not just talking about the person you are in front of people, but the actual person you are behind closed doors. Just like you can’t trot down to the local hardware store to buy a personality (and a doorknob – get it?), you also can’t buy character.
9. Love
No amount of money can buy you love. If you become the richest person in the United States, you can’t pay anyone to love you nor can you measure your love for someone by what you buy him or her. Love should be true. It should be sincere. It should be genuine. And it should be good.
10. Salvation
Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8-9 states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” We most definitely cannot buy our salvation. We receive the gift of His grace by believing in Him and accepting his Son as our Savior. God doesn’t want our money. He wants our hearts.