“Streams of living water will flow from within him.” – John 7:38
It has been said that “we make a living by getting, but we make a life by giving.” I’m reminded of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad back when it was a highly advertised bestseller, and its author Robert Kiyosaki was out touting his “Rich Dad Poor Dad” seminars all over the media. I resisted all of it back then assuming it was just another self-help get-rich-quick scheme, which typically meant the author getting rich, not the reader. I remained skeptical, until for reasons I don’t recall, the executive coach I was working with at the time, insisted I read the book.
In a nutshell, the book is about the contrasts between the two father figures in Kiyosaki’s life, one being his natural father, the poor dad, the other his best friend’s dad, the rich dad. Poor Dad, though was not actually poor, in fact earned a rather substantial salary. Neither was Rich Dad, an entrepreneur, always flush with cash. The difference was that Poor Dad, being on a fixed salary, viewed money as finite – scarce. Rich Dad, though, being an entrepreneur, viewed money as abundant for those willing and creative enough to harvest some of it. Oddly, though, their contrasting attitudes toward money – scarcity versus abundance – was not as evident in their accumulation as in their giving. Poor Dad would give to charity only when he had some left over, but Rich Dad extended generosity regardless if he was short of cash, on the conviction he would be able to come up with it one way or another.
It was in reading that message that I began to take Kiyosaki’s book seriously. Although I was right about one thing in my original skepticism, the subject of the book was about getting rich, but not rich in wealth, rather rich in life. That was eye-opening and life-changing for me, for I had spent most of my adult life up to that point pursuing wealth by hoarding my gains assuming there was a limited supply. Instead of allowing living water to flow through, I was trying to dam up my little part of the stream, which oddly limited the potential rather than expanding it.
As Oswald Chambers says, “We cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us.” For when streams of living water flow through us, only then do we become rich in life, for we make a living by getting, but we make a life by giving.