Have you realised what your money can buy and cannot buy? Money can buy you a house, but not a home. Money can buy you an exotic bed, but not sleep. Money can buy you books, but not wisdom. Money can buy food, but not appetite.

Money can buy you medicines but cannot fully guarantee you health. Money can buy you companions but not real friends. Money can buy you position, but not respect. Money can buy you jewellery but not inner beauty.

Novelist Rudyard Kipling once gave a commencement address at McGill University in Montreal. He warned them about making money, position or glory in life ambition.

“Someday” he said, “you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.” The 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant said crisply “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without”.

Philosopher Socrates would go to marketplaces and buy nothing. He would tell his disciples how good it feels to be happy without these things.

In modern life, ‘window-shopping’ can be a meaningful spiritual experience if we realise how happy we can be without many things. When Jesus urged people not to worry about they should eat, drink or wear by comparing the lilies or the fields and the birds of the air that are taken care by the God (Matthew 6:25-34), He meant a restful surrender and to yearn for things that money cannot buy.

Family, friends and the many relationships we have are those that money can’t buy.  Cherish the things in your life that money did not buy you. You will be lot more happy.

When you feel more blessed to have received, become more generous to share. When you feel more blessed that you have shared, pray that you may receive more that you can share more. That’s the way to live happily.

Your barns won’t go empty because God fills barns that stock up portions for those in need.  “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38).