As we go through life, we pick up more and more baggage. Travelling through life can be easy, but carrying stuff through life makes it harder.

We ought to travel simply in our life and our relationships to keep God as the focus. Less is more.

Unfortunately, the world tells us that more is more: more wealth, more work, more money. The truth is that we aren’t called to be participants in this world and its systems, but we are called to be otherworldly instead.

The aim is to have less of what is meaningless and more of what matters:

4Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

5“Fools fold their idle hands,

leading them to ruin.”

6And yet,

“Better to have one handful with quietness

than two handfuls with hard work

and chasing the wind.”

The Advantages of Companionship

7I observed yet another example of something meaningless under the sun. 8This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, “Who am I working for? Why am I giving up so much pleasure now?” It is all so meaningless and depressing.

(Ecclesiastes 4:4-8)

King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, had everything that money could buy, yet concluded it’s all meaningless.

This doesn’t mean we ought to deliberately live in poverty, however. God doesn’t want us not to have things, but He doesn’t want things to have us. We need to be aware that money can the desire for riches can become an idol.

It’s a bout quality vs quantity. God wants us to have quality in our life. For some, that might be a lot, but for others, that might not necessarily be a lot of things.

Remember, don’t get overwhelmed by work or take too much on. It’s better to have one hand full and peace, rather than being overwhelmed with work with no margin or capacity to help others. If we have one hand empty, we can support others.